White Noise

Cherry

By Silver Spun Sand

Fri, 25 Dec 2015
  • 797 reads
4 comments
 
Last day of term...Christmas round the corner;
blindly, he stares through the classroom window.
 
“Good morning, Mr. Reeves,” say the children,
as steadily it snows on the playground and the trees.
 
Attempts to get his brain in gear – picks up the chalk,
scrawls a sum.  Winces as it screeches on the blackboard,
teeth all on edge, it shatters in his fingers.
 
Whispers echo round the newly whitewashed walls, say
there must be some mistake. Four plus three isn’t eight.
They don’t quite understand … Nor does he.
 
He fidgets with his collar, taps on the table
with an ink-stained wooden ruler he’s owned, 
man and boy, since his Baliol days.
 
Snatches at his brow; tries to recall Pythagoras’ theorem...
it wasn’t exactly Quantum Physics.  ‘Come on, come on, man.
Get your act together!’ he goads himself.
 
They chide and chortle behind cupped hands.
He slouches at his table, grey head bowed.
 
And to crown it all, his dog passed away that morning
after sixteen years. Still clutching his precious ruler, 
he shuffles to the door.
 
In total silence they watch from the window
as he closes it behind him, stumbles out
across the car-park – tie at half-mast. 
 
Fumbles in his trouser pocket, as customarily he did
but still he keeps on walking, his white shirt
billowing in the wind; his jacket hanging still,
on the back of the classroom door.
 
He’s mislaid something, but he’s not quite sure what,
as steadily it snows on playground and trees
 
‘Lost his keys again, I’ll bet,’ say the children, giggling,
as he walks right by his cherished Morris Minor
towards the railway cutting, and the river beyond.
 
“Goodbye, Mr. Reeves...” they call.
Certificate 12
Poem
Silver Spun Sand Poems
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

ah, fate intervenes a kind of alzheimers that's never late. 

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

That's fate, in a nuthshell, right enough.

 

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

So poignant, and yet seems to speak of a fairly happy life, respected and loved in a long time as a schoolmaster, possibly a small village school. Wonder where the story came from? Christmas greetings to you. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Hi there, Rhiannon.  I think you are probably right in your assumptions of the gentleman in question.  It was how I enisaged it, anyway.  And as to the story, just a pot pourri, I think, of those hundreds of people who come and go in our lives; forgotten, in the main, and then one day, one of them springs to mind...as heresmiley

Warm Christmas greetings to you and yours, Rhiannon,  and I hope Boxing Day is shaping up to be a happy one.

Tina