Written on 7 July 2019; published on 16 July 2019

Hello, Dear Ones, It’s Alice. I Am of the Stars.

At writing class this month, we had an assignment to write a story that included certain words. Each person in the class contributed one word at that moment; and the words were: spelunking, no, accomplished, joy, green, deserted, mistake, and kaleidoscope.

My gift to the class was a poem that included those words. Here is that poem for you ….

Mission Accomplished
A Poem by Alice B. Clagett
7 July 2019

No! Spelunking is not for me!

When my first grade class went to the Luray Caverns in Virginia, I went on sit-down strike at the entrance.

I remember our teacher said:
“Sit right here till we get back!”

Then, one by one,
my classmates walked
down the stairs
into the cave.

Deserted! I was all alone!

Time went by.
I stared at the dark entrance to the cave.
A cool breeze welled up to greet me.

As if it had a mind of its own, my foot started tapping.

I stood up.
“This is a big mistake,” I thought.

I stepped down one stone step, then another.
Down, down into the darkness.

Gone, the green grass.
Gone, the kaleidoscope of sunlit clouds and sky.

My sandaled feet tapped Morse code courage.

. . . . .

Alice B. Clagett

Except where otherwise noted, “The Chalice and the Crucible” by Alice B. Clagett … https://chaliceandcrucible.com/ … is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0) … https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ..