Influence Poetic Asides

 Elementary Teachers

 

First Grade Mrs. Adams,

More like a grandma than a teacher.

I told her I had three and a half sisters.

She laughed and told everyone

I might have a sister or brother.

Brother no way. I was right.

My little sister came all in yellow.

 

Second grade Mrs. Alberta.

She didn’t smile much.

I didn’t know much about God,

but Mrs. Alberta said

 He peeked in the back window

 to see if we were behaving.

 

Third grade Mrs. Galbraith.

Pleasant and elegant, like June Cleaver.

When I was getting all the math problems wrong,

she discovered that I couldn’t read the black board.

That summer, I began wearing glasses.

 

Forth grade Mrs. Graff. She smiled a lot.

She read stories like The Secret Gaden.

She caught one of the boys drawing a smiley face

on the black board with a sponge.

We thought he was in trouble.

She grabbed the sponge

and drew a smiley face with curly hair.

 

Fifth grade Mrs. Donahue.

She had a loud, but nice, voice.

 She’d see me in town and say,

“There she is with a book again!”

I wonder if she expected

I’d be writing them some day.

 

Sixth grade Mrs. Robinson.

A very sour lady.

On the rare occasion when she smiled,

it looked like her face would crack.

She didn’t like a poem I wrote.

I didn’t think about writing another one

until many years later.

 

Good or bad memories,

these ladies delivered a basic education

like mama birds dolling out worms,

in hopes their chicks would fly off on their own.

I appreciate their influence.