[Matt Q]

Hi Max,

I've come back to this a few times and it has me rereading and pondering, which is surely a good thing. There's clearly more to this and a drop-off and pickup. I'm not sure if I grasp what that is, but I still enjoy the poem. I get a sense of melancholy or flatness/sadness. And perhaps this, along with my sense that there's something more to it -- and thus having things to ponder and wanting to reread -- is enough: it's certainly something I tend to prefer to having everything spelled out.

After rereading a few times, I found myself wondering if "when you drop them off" is when they're young, and "when you return for them" is when they're grown, the playground is empty, the flag that had been run up the pole is gone, as is the tumult of their early youth. So perhaps the poem is about one's children growing and moving away, about them "dashing from you" on a larger scale than just the school run, and the emptiness that leaves for the N. I'd say it's at least open to that reading.

I'm was a little thrown by the tense shift from future in the first sentence to present in the rest. I wasn't sure if the remainder of the poem is taking place in the present, or if it's intended to be what will take place when the sun brightens. The more I reread, the more I think the former reading is most likely, and the poem is saying that the sun never brightens when you take the kids the school. But today (and every day, presumably) all appears unchanged. The school run is always the same. So, figuratively, perhaps: things never appear brighter, the N's mood never lifts?

Still, maybe some sort of clue might help. A "but" or a "yet" linking sentence 1 and 2, Or a "today" or a "now", or something ...

The first sentence/tense shift also leaves me a bit stuck in terms of tying this in with reading (above) of them growing and leaving (school, home). It will be a brighter / happier / more hopeful day because it'll be the day they leave school/home/the N? Or the implication is that sun never brightens when the N takes them to school because, perhaps, it saddens him to take them there each day, to be separated from them?

"Some school books fall" initially struck me as a little fillerish or rhyme-driven, but does so less on rereading. Maybe my niggle with it has to do with the rather non-specific "some". Maybe there's something more specific that could replace it? Or maybe the line is fine as it is.

I like "hardly worth forgetting"; it's an interesting twist on a familiar phrase that has me pondering. In a good way. Though again, I'm not sure I could offer an interpretation that fully tied it in to a reading of the poem.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading and rereading this and pondering it. And to me it does seem to communicate something on an emotional level. Does it need to be clearer (or perhaps: do I need to be a better reader)? Perhaps not. Still it might be interesting to see you try.

best,

Matt