A Great Wall of Nothing

An almost true story

On Monday Morning, I came into my classroom

And saw that construction was done over the weekend.

A great wall of bookcases had been erected,

And I had very little books to fill them.

Three bulletin boards with clever artwork and words

Were also erased from time and space. 

It all seemed like a great wall of nothing.

Both colleagues and and students laughed and gossiped, 

Calling the new monstrosity, "an empty chamber of congress",

And "Home Depot" shelving gone wrong.

After trying to figure out how to make the room 

More functional and classroom-like,

I came upon a dragon puppet in a thrift shop. 

I quickly purchase the item, brought it to school,

Knocked out a few shelves and went to work,

Creating an oversized puppet theater box

To represent one of our favorite stories, 

"When The Mountain Meets The Moon".

Numerous "misfit" students helped me to create a background, 

Foreground, hanging curtains, styrofoam snow, 

3D clouds hanging from invisible string, and an LCD light

to illuminate the head of the dragon, and it started to feel 

More like home, and we were all so proud. 

But we forgot to unplug the glue gun,

And it was the last day of school

Leading into a ten day

Holiday break.