Graduation has arrived
our school days are done
our adult lives yet to come
this end thus our beginning.
We stand as if on a wharf
of some great port ready
to embark on the vessel
that will take us all forth
to reap what we have sown
in destinations unknown.
Today the gods seem kind
so we trust ourselves to fate
letting the wind fill our sails
for life’s high seas await!
Youth sits hiding at
the back of the room
while the lesson is going on,
festering in complacency
a fly buzzes listlessly while
two girls write an erotic
reinterpretation of the scene,
batting an absence of lashes
at each other, faces curled in smiles
sneaking in a baseball,
the youth sits, meticulously
unstitching it, half-listening to
discussion about passive, then
active voice.
More at https://dehartreadingandlitresources.blogspot.com.
Fourth grade math, split with fifth graders
The aged eagle swooping over the room
Resting at his nest on occasion, then up again
Back and forth, spreading grey feathers
“Sleep with your math books, class
Practice your fractions, and then practice more”
Last year, the kid won a division contest
Now he is confused, one number over another
A strange display, another language
With about half his mind, the pencil forms walls
Small figures in tights, vigilante emblems
Of course, the paper is snatched by the talon
“Superhero City,” the pedagogue intoned
“Will not solve your math problems.”
The corridor that I entered
in childhood was a tunnel
where a howling dog chased
our dreams and we, saved
by lashings of wind and rain,
pounded our gum boots into
rains, as puddles across the lanes whirled in sublime fantasies.
They would tuck him
in the corner if his words
came too profusely.
Thus he sat and listened
to the tick of curricula,
the turning of tomes,
leafing through the pages
of tests and quizzes.
The din of voices and future
forgetting.
More at http://jddehartwriting.blogspot.com.