VOLUNTEER DAY AT GREENCASTLE ELEMENTARY

They file into the room
where two of us have come
to tell them about plants.

I had forgotten how fresh
as roses third graders are,
their faces bright with

eagerness for anything different,
their hands ready to shoot up
to the simplest of questions:

"How many of you like ice cream?"
"What do plants need to grow?"
except one who slouches

in the back row, gaze turned
window ward, brow troubled.
We pass around ferns, pine cones,

lichen-covered limbs, to grasping
hands till they reach him.
He shakes his head, refuses

to take or touch.
The session ends. He shuffles out.
I catch the only thing

he's said, making sure we hear:
"This was boring."
O child, how your heart must hurt.