Exquisite Mundanity Poem by Melissa Harkness

Exquisite Mundanity
What is a day in room three?
Exquisite mundanity:
undefined rage and uncertainty bubbling up,
carbonated,
tickling at the edges of routine.
Spelling tests
Multiplication
Commas and periods
Punctuation defining labels
of circumstance,
of state standards,
of peer's praise and redirected frustration.
Hungry hearts,
and busy minds,
and squirmy bodies,
and awkward words,
asking for answers,
for boundaries,
for validation,
for products and quotients and sums,
for love
for permission to be.
A new teacher…
hungry for much of the same things.
Validating and wondering is it enough?
Am I enough?
Asking for boundaries and answers and love and quotients,
and she dances with the questions, and the creativity, and the frustrations
of young hearts,
of young desires,
of young disappointments and excitement
of young minds.
The dance full and complex and routine.
Exquisite mundanity.
A day in room three.