Poetry, Theme Prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing Prompts

The Second Shift

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Endings & Beginnings Challenge – our hosts
Sarah & Rohini invite us to write about an
ending becoming a beginning, or conversely,
a beginning marking the end of something.

Image by Me & ChatGPT

For thirty years she’d ruled a kingdom small
of glue sticks, glitter, and a reading rug,
where “inside voice” calmed nearly all,
and naptime fixed what was missed by a hug.

Retirement, her friends said, would be a breeze.
No more “Miss Carter, Bobby ATE the paste!”
No more debating, with her practiced ease,
whose turn it was, with what, and with great haste.

But now her days were long and far too quiet.
She organized her spice rack twice by Tuesday.
She missed the chaos, missed the daily riot,
missed being needed in a special, messy way.

She tried book clubs. She tried a yoga class.
She tried to embrace the peace she’d always craved.
But peace, it turned out, paled compared to mass
hysteria over whose seat at story time got saved.

Then came the day her neighbor, in a fluster,
knocked with a toddler and a diaper bag:
“My sitter canceled….can you maybe muster
the patience till I….” Miss Carter didn’t flag.

She scooped the child up like riding a bike,
produced a puzzle, hummed a familiar song,
and thought: THERE you are, the things I truly like ….
the noise, the need, the joyfully headstrong!

Now Wednesdays mean a toddler and some Play-Doh,
some finger paint, and a very sticky floor.
Turns out retirement’s real motto
isn’t “it’s over” …. it’s really “life’s an open door!”

NAR©2026

This is “Schools Out” by Alice Cooper

Endings and Beginnings-Friday Challenge

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.

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