A Transformation.

Pure Fiction is driving this week's poetry bus and the prompt is a wide one - anything to do with Transformation. Sometimes a wide subject makes it harder to think of something to say, doesn't it? Well I had a long think and then I came up with one close to my heart - it has always struck me that the day one's child begins full time school is a real 'transformation' day - for the first time for many children, they are away from home, from the influence of Mum and Dad, on their own in a fairly strange environment - and (for the purpose of this poem) they have a whole secret life about which Mum and Dad know nothing.

What mother has not had the following sort of conversation with an infant son?

Did you have a good day?
Yep.
What did you do?
Stuff.
What did you have for school dinner?
Things.
Were you a good boy?
Sort of.
What did you do at playtime?
Played with my friend.
Oh you've got a friend have you? What's his name?
Can't remember.

I don't remember being struck when I started school with the thought that at last I had a secret life about which my parents knew nothing (I went to school at four and a half having not been to any kind of pre-school - there were no such things in my day). I suppose it is a feeling that the small child can't put into words - but it is there nevertheless. So here is my contribution:-

Transformation.

I was sad
when you went
through the school gate
for the first time.

For I knew
that by the end of that day,
you would have a life
about which I knew
only what you chose
to tell me.

Have a nice Sunday. Here the weather is beginning to break up - sunshine and heavy cloud - September is coming with all its true colours.