A Poem for the First Day of School

To A High School Senior

by Pat Schneider

Don't go. Don't stay.
Daughter. Morning after afternoon
the last year slips away.

Singing all the old songs, you will go
(ambivalence of moon, certainty of sun)
we know

only half of what we are.
The earth is earth to us, star
perhaps

if apprehended far enough away.
Daughter – don't go.
Don't stay.

"To A High School Senior" by Pat Schneider, from Long Way Home. © Amherst Writers & Artists Press, 1993.

Lifted from The Writer's Almanac