Two Little Orange Chairs

Last night we sat around a campfire with some friends, and one lady talked about a job she'd had in which she spent 45 minutes each morning praying for the people that would sit in the chairs she was setting up. I used to do that at the beginning of each school year; I'd pray for each student that would be sitting in my classroom.

As I sat on the porch this afternoon reading some poetry (Shona Cole would be proud of me;), my eyes fell on the little orange chairs my children brought out to sit on during the meteor shower (that didn't happen in our line of vision!) the other night. Those little school chairs took me back to the fireside conversation, and to those prayers so long ago -- and I found myself composing this little poem:

Two Little Orange Chairs

Before me sit
two little orange chairs,

relics from a kindergarten classroom.
Scratches and stains bear witness
to silent stories of souls
who've sat on them.
And now, decades later,
I find myself praying for those souls.

Do they have happy memories of time
spent sitting, spelling, and sorting shapes?
Did the rattle of the chairs' metal feet
distract them from the drone of days
drowned in alphabets and abacuses?
Or did it echo their dancing dreams
as they laughed and learned
of worlds beyond their own?

Where are those children now?
Are they living, and loving life?
Have they found Joy and Peace?
Do they yearn for the simple days when
their chairs rattled as they wriggled?
What have they done, and
what have they become?

Wherever they are, I pray for the salvation
of the sweet souls that sat on these
two little orange chairs.

Have you read or written any poetry lately? What simple, everyday object could you look at with the eyes of the poet in you? I challenge you to exercise your poetic license by writing a simple poem! Let me know if you accept the challenge by leaving a comment below, or by contacting me at the email address in my sidebar.