One Thousand Mornings

We send them to school in their little beige shorts and their little white polo shirts, red jumpers still on in the morning.

By midday it often starts to rain big, sparkly drops of summer so that they have no choice but to run from class to class.

When I fetch them it’s sunny again, but the mood is changing. By the end of the afternoon it’s pouring.

Anyone who’s out then will feel the unsettling heat of the electric storm circling Alpine villages in the distance.

The thunder sounds especially eerie in the night. It echoes from one mountain range into the other as we lay in bed in between.

The next morning again into the red uniforms. Rain or shine, summer through winter, those smart little shirts and trousers. Red white, khaki, look alive please, please put your arm through here cause Daddy’s a good man and needs to keep his job, too!

One thousand school mornings like this.

One thousand mornings of these colours and this rush and now all that remains are fifteen.