Kamala Das - Punishment in Kindergarten

Today the world is a little more my own. <br />No need to remember the pain <br />A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing <br />Words at me like pots and pans, to drain <br />That honey-coloured day of peace. <br />‘Why don't you join the others, what <br />A peculiar child you are! ' <br /> <br />On the lawn, in clusters, sat my <br />schoolmates sipping <br />Sugarcane, they turned and laughed; <br />Children are funny things, they laugh <br />In mirth at others' tears, I buried <br />My face in the sun-warmed hedge <br />And smelt the flowers and the pain. <br /> <br />The words are muffled now, the laughing <br />Faces only a blur. The years have <br />Sped along, stopping briefly <br />At beloved halts and moving <br />Sadly on. My mind has found <br />An adult peace. No need to remember <br />That picnic day when I lay hidden <br />By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun <br />Standing lonely in the sky.<br /><br />Kamala Das<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem..../punishment-in-kinde