CHALK IT UP

By the San Diego Bay

it wasn’t Monet, Chagall,

Van Gogh under the canopy

of Tibetan rhythm and seabird cry.

At the seaside arts festival it was

chalk, just sidewalk chalk art.

School children—knees dug

into porous concrete, messy hands

covered in a color spectrum of calcite.

Sprawling concrete canvass, the created

creating. I was awestruck by the beauty

taken by the grist of innocent freedom.

From the Pacific, dark clouds appeared

and an ocean fell from the sky.

Children scurried like street mice

for shelter and watched helplessly

as powdered creations liquefied,

turned to rainbow streams

that scampered to the sea.

In Veterans Hospital

close to the San Diego Bay

Dad said, “They made me drink

this chalky shit so they can see

that thing in me that is bigger

than the war. Those damn Nazis

didn’t get me, but son, looks like this will.”

He’s the one said to chalk it up,

the wins and the losses.

Chalk up the successes and failures

and move on. So there was chalk

in a circle on the board for my nose

because I was the problem child,

the kid at risk, the reluctant learner,

the one they gave no hope to make it.

In a barrio not far from the San Diego Bay

a young artist they called Ramon

had a blood soaked chalk outline

of himself on a dark sidewalk.

I don’t know why; I hate that I don’t

understand why some don’t make it.

Yet, along the English Channel

they draw chalk from the cliffs

of Dover. In South Dakota machines

excavate tons of limestone chalk—

some to mix in concrete,

some to drink for x-rays,

some for murder scene outlines,

some for chalk art,

some for a 5^th grade boy

to write 200 times on a blackboard,

“I will not talk in class.”

Some chalk to form clean white

writing instruments for teachers.

So, three months after I graduated

Magna Cum Laude with honors

as the top education major at my

college, I stepped into my 4^th grade

class, took a fresh, long stick of white

chalk from a new box and wrote

in bold strokes, “My name is Mr. Scott.”

Turned to fifty young eyes

to announce, “This is my class.

You are my students, and I am

both humbled and honored to be here.

This is our chalk; this is our green

chalkboard on which there will be no

circles for noses. In my class we will

grow, learn, become. We will respect

and care for one another. We will

have fun learning and expressing,

and we will talk, yeah,

we will talk about everything.

One day our chalkboard will be

concrete canvas. We will lasso

a rainbow and make it sidewalk

art that beautifies the world.

If a black cloud comes, we will

defy it and dare that cloud

to wash away our chalk!

Clayton Scott

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