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Poems

 

“Everything about Egypt”

for Sister Judith

 

Music was only supposed to last

from 12:20 to one but

on St. Patrick’s Day Sister Judith

seemed radiant as star dust

so on we sang

holding the geography of Egypt

for another day.  I remember

our forty-two faces lighting

with Sister’s love for the songs

of Ireland that afternoon. Egyptian

rivers had to wait while Vito

Carluzzi crooned, “When Irish

Eyes Are Smiling” and Stash

Jankowski belted,  “Me Father’s

Shillelagh.” We just kept singing

and singing with the pyramids and

sphinxes growing one day older

for soon it was 1:30, then it was two

in a room filled with fifth graders

and a nun we loved, one

voice beautiful as prayer.  And I,

like a lucky leprechaun, found

a pot of gold in the second row

where pretty Jane Ellen Hughes

sang “O Danny Boy” and I dreamed

in green she was really singing

“O Eddie Boy” as we walked hand

in hand along a Galway shore.

So, Sister Judith, lovely lady of God,

know that this boy in the back

remembers when we kept text books

closed to spend all afternoon in song

and that joy is an emerald river

flowing through my soul and all these years

later I need to thank you for everything

about Egypt we did not learn the day

you let the lesson plan go, one March 17th

when none of us could stop the music.

 

from Dream Teaching (Grayson Books)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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