On the way to school from BART, along the apartment lined street where the bulk of my classes for the past 12 years live, there is a small pile of stuffed animals, toys and candles. Last week, the balloons tied there were replaced, tugging at their strings.
In the cool morning before the dawn, the balloons sag, deflated by the chill, lying slack and lethargic on the concrete.
I think of the boy who was run over there in July. He also lies on the ground, seemingly weary.
I modeled writing about this for my class. One kid supplied the name-- Luis. Their dead carries a familiar name. The class also supplied a verb: "machucar". The sound-symbolism of this word tells you all you need to know about it. "Crush" carries the same kinds of harsh phonemes and semantic content. Neither is the word I would have supplied. Supplying details to what I was writing, the kids supplied "in a box"-- also not really where I was going with writing vocabulary. The kids helped me with the next sentence: what I think about the dead kid and the balloons.
In the afternoon as I ride home, the balloons fly plump in the sun, inflated and rising, orange and taut.
No comments:
Post a Comment