Cave Girl

 Cave Girl left her home
at seven o’clock each morning
and began the five-mile walk
to school

She didn’t live in a cave,
but the other students called her Cave Girl
because she didn’t have a TV

Instead of spending hours
watching mind-numbing shows,
she passed her time in the garden
and in the forest
with the flora and fauna,
observing and learning

Her parents had built
a mud brick home,
trimmed with wood and stone,
with a thatched river reed roof,
and when she was thirteen
they built her a hogan,
Navajo style,
on a far corner of their land
so that she could have a place
to be alone

♫ ♫ ♫

 I don’t want to go
to school anymore,
Cave Girl announced one morning
shortly after she had turned fourteen

Okay,
said her father
Your mother and I didn’t care much for school either,
and neither of us feel that it was of much use
Everything important we learned elsewhere somehow

And so Cave Girl began
to enjoy school-free mornings
by following her pet tortoise around,
a friend who constantly reminded her
that slow is good

♫ ♫ ♫