What you call strange
I call free range.
Children embracing the outdoors,
unmoored from the classroom’s
desks, chairs and carpeted floors.
The woods are their playgrounds,
refusing to stay bound
they run through fields
and meadows and grass.
The sun on their face,
not staring through the glass
of confining windows that
keep just out of reach
the feeling of dirt breath their feet.
These are free-range children.
Building dens,
cuddling hens,
walking fens,
chasing friends.
These are free-range children.
Climbing trees,
dirty knees,
bumble bees,
feel the breeze.
These are free-range children.
What you call strange,
I call free-range.
And maybe
we agree more than not,
that children learn best,
untethered from a desk
with freedom to run ‘til they drop.