In celebration of National Poetry month, Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin wrote and recorded a reading of one of her own poems, Kintsugi in a Pandemic.
Kintsugi in a Pandemic
By Pender Makin
Holding the pieces of who they’d been
When they were last together,
The teacher reads to students
Who listed now behind screens.
Leaning in to touch the glass.
As she sings each of their names into the story,
Even both Caitlyns,
They are called back and held in place
By the liquid gold
Of her voice, Healing exposed edges
From their sudden breaking apart
Until they are, once more, the vase, the bowl,
The teacup they’d been together.