Punishment in Kindergarten – Kamala Das

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Punishment in Kinder Garden 

Today the world is a little more my own.

No need to remember the pain

A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing

Words at me like pots and pans, to drain

That honey-coloured day of peace

“Why don’t you join the others? What

A peculiar child you are!”

On the lawn, in clusters, sat my schoolmates sipping

Sugarcane, they turned and laughed;

Children are funny things, they laugh

In mirth at other’s tears. I buried

My face in the sun-warmed hedge

And smelt the flowers and the pain

The words are muffled now, the laughing

Faces only a blur. The years have

Sped along, stopping briefly

At beloved halts and moving

Sadly on. My mind has found

An adult peace. No need to remember

That picnic day when I lay hidden

By the hedge, watching the steel-white sun Standing lonely in the sky.

 – Kamala Das / Kamala Surayya

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