After Columbine, the administrators decided

we should drill but not frighten the children, not

lock down but announce: Teachers get your red folders.

We joked we’d riffle our desks for folders, forget

to switch off lights or lock the doors. We unrolled

butcher paper over windows, practiced crawl and cover.

Even in the dark, live shooter wasn’t possible.


Red folder is a slim memory, twenty years later,

ice storms of shots and so many birds snapped from the sky.

When I was in New England I saw my first bright cardinal

on the grounds of a fancy school and I thought how that flash

was a Christmas card from my youth, red gash of bird

on a snow-covered branch and oh, the berries,

little gestures of goodwill, drawn in crayon.


Arlene Naganawa is our Poet in Residence for December.

Previously: "When You Are Old and Full of Sleep", and "Word Medicine"