by Joanne Durham

In appreciation of Ellin Keene’s To Understand

Mystified, five-year-old Carla wonders why

these squiggles matter, why should she care, 

busy learning to tie shoelaces,

pick up peas with a fork, take the stairs

one foot after the other. Slowly she begins

to note the M that glares

above McDonalds’ golden arches, 

the sign that stops her mother’s car 

with a jerk, more than a red shape.

The child who threw me a cold stare and said, 

You always ask me ‘does it make sense,’ but what 

does ‘make sense’ mean? You have to stop

 and wonder how much anything makes sense 

in our boiling world, children’s bodies blown  

apart by bombs, shrunken to bones by hunger.

Do we dare to make something 

with our hands, our brains, that our senses

can embrace, that is worth

melding these letters together, to spell

a life we could all want to share?

*First published in TEACH.WRITE ©Joanne Durham