Five children clasping mittens
could not hug the entire trunk.
Whole hands could hide in the folds of its bark.
James, the tallest boy in class,
could sit on a root,

Miss Flotsam was my reception teacher.
She had travelled the world.
Brown hair turned golden
under distant suns,
clothes carrying colours

The light through the blind is a poem,

the way it illuminates air.

And the shadows that fall

on the floor and the wall

are signs that a poem is there.