Punishment in Kindergarten

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

Kamala Das