The girl said plaintively, “There’s nothing to write about!”

And her English teacher said, “Write about that”

The teacher wore purple, had white hair, and was stout 

The girl whipped out her writing pad 

And wrote about nothing 

How there is never nothing 

In 10th grade English class 

She ate her peanut butter sandwich and watched the time pass  

The black hands on the white clock 

The thin windows of the building were rectangle ice blocks 

She thought of her basketball game in five hours 

Of afterward, taking a shower 

And nursing the blister on the ball of her foot 

But she loved those white and purple high top shoes

All the stopping and going, sliding and scooting, pivoting wasn’t good for foot skin

As the girl wrote, just then – her teacher handed her some lotion

She told the girl, “Sometimes you just have to get goin’”

“There’s never nothing to write about”
The teacher and the girl looked out the cold window and the teacher said, “You see that man below? He writes full time – half the books in the library are his”

“And you see this?” She held a Bible 

She told the girl, “You’ve got it all at this private school and you may feel entitled”

The teacher said, “I’m glad people wrote and write. You may think your poems and stories are mild, but you never know the difference they make”

All this made the girl think 

The girl pondered wisdom 

That night after the basketball game, the teacher died on the car ride home 

Had she been an ethereal gnome?

The girl went home and wrote invitations 

A story about a young girl who needed wisdom and inspiration 

So she sent them out to all the moms in the class 

She invited them to coffee so she could ask 

Ask about everything 

The girl interviewed, asked questions, kept writing 

Her works ended up in the library 

Many years later, the young kids coming up thought she was a fairy 

Her writings: about peanut butter sandwiches, sitting by cold windows, healing blisters, grief – helped so many