A Flower Swaying in the Wind by Christina Buchmann

I attended the Anglo-American School in Stockholm, Sweden from 1970-1975, 5th through 9th grade.  I have annuals from each of those years.  The school population was probably two or three hundred and were a mix of Americans, Swedes, English, Canadians and kids from all over the world (children of diplomats and MNC executives.)

Wonderful school, wonderful years.  In a text conversation with a Turkish friend from that time, he mentioned in passing that he had lost his annual.  I have one, 1975, readily accessible but the others are packed away in various boxes, yet to be uncovered.  

I have begun taking iPhone photos of each page and loading them up so that he can see the 1975 annual.  In doing so I came across a charming little poem by a young German girl who was two grades behind me.  She was in seventh grade.  

A Flower Swaying in the Wind

by Christina Buchmann

A flower swaying in the wind

Is what I'd like to be

Whatever kind, it doesn't matter,

Just think, it would be me!

A flower swaying in the wind

Is what I'd like to be

I would be red, blue, maybe yellow

With leaves green like the sea.

A flower swaying in the wind

Is what I'd like to be.

Great literature?  Perhaps not.  For a twelve-year-old in a second language? - Quite wonderful.

I hope that Christina, these fifty years later, might see her poem remembered across so many years, and travels, and moves, and different countries, and different times, still remembered.