Back row: Patti Dykstra Arnieri, Val Lecke Halla, Ed Jackson
Front row: Mick Penticoff, Judy Dykstra-Brown and Mick’s granddaughter Melissa

School Reunion

Wind strums the grass
around the Dakota town
where we gather under a prairie sky.

Back home again after sixty years
all the world  constricted to this gymnasium––
forgotten friends are again remembered,
denied loves again brought to mind.

Folklore of the past is stirred up to reveal new truths
as facts and rumors buzz around our heads
like bees that store old stories like honey,
then lie fallow to be stirred up again in 5 years.

We leave each other again, then,
for one more time,
wondering with departing sighs
whether pleas to keep in touch
will be remembered.

For The Sunday Whirl, the prompt words are: home world denied bees pleas forgotten folklore wonder fallow sigh sky strum

I am riding home from my 2-day school reunion in South Dakota as I write this poem wherein I’ve added the restriction of making use of the twelve prompt words above. It was the best reunion ever–the 61st year after my high school graduation, but since the all-school reunions (meaning they are for every class who ever graduated from the school)  for the tiny high school I attended are staged only every 5 years, it was only my 12th reunion, not all of which I’ve been able to attend. It was, however, the best one to date.  (But then my sister says I say that every time.) This time there were lots of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of schoolmates who attended and it was wonderful to see these additions to their lives and continuations of their stories.

More Photos: Reunion Parade combined with 250 year celebration..Horsemen with flags of all 50 states. Photo by Patti Arnieri.