Poem 367

Hopefully things have changed …

( I like the line about overlooked children responding to a bit of encouragement and bobbing to the surface … )

Teachers

Back then in the primers 
in the sixties
there was only one Miss Parker

now every young teacher seems to care
be interested
                            imaginative
but back then we knew our luck 
was in for the year
it was like a lagoon we floated in
kids bobbing to the surface
who'd never been seen before

Miss Parker whose face went bright red
when she played the trumpet
was far better we knew
than Mrs Aranui who ground her ballpoint pen
into your scalp and kept a strap
in her drawer
named Black Beauty

Miss Parker who let us make red indian costumes
and raid the other classes
who taught me all the planets in order
was better than Miss Fleming crabbed
and ancient who took the new entrants
and tamed them
with her ruler

Miss Parker measuring on the floor
to show us how long the average lion was
was far preferable to what lay ahead
Mr Robertson with his sarcasm
whimsical cruelty
                                    the furious temper
that seemed to come out of nowhere
making the surface of a day
treacherous

Miss Parker you were my best teacher
but the truth is I've written down
all I remember of you
                                             hardly anything
compared to that bastard Robertson
who on the second day of decimal points
rammed Scott McGinley's head into the blackboard
every time he tried to speak