Context: This piece is a blast from my past. I wrote it in high school English class and it was my instructor’s favourite from me. I remember that day we had just read Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and my classmates had decided the poem was about death. This was common for them, looking for negative themes in otherwise benign poems, and I was honestly fed up with it. I started writing a poem full of joy but when it was my turn to read I had to ask them to come back to me as it wasn’t finished yet. When I did finally read it, my instructor’s first word was simply “Wow.”
I’ve been looking for the notebook that contained this piece since I started this blog. Reading it to my class is one of my proudest moments in writing and I wanted to immortalize it here. Looking at it now it’s pretty rough but it wouldn’t be right to doctor it up for you. One day though, I’ll do a reboot of it.
“All aboard!”
Shouts the train driver,
As the doors close.
Then we are off.
Sitting there with my backpack,
Coming home from school,
I see an old woman with a basket.
Sitting across from me.
She looks up, smiles, and hands me a flower.
Stop
The passengers are released,
And trade places with others.
What a sight!
Clowns board the train!
“Why do you all look so glum and dead?”
Asked one of the clowns.
“Let me tell you a story,
Of a boy named Ted.
Ted was ten, he went to school,
Which always seemed like a thing so cruel.
He went to see his friend named Bob,
He was young but had a job.
He worked at the docks so flooded with boats,
For a man named Jed who owned two stoats.
Now Jed, oh my, he was mean,
But one day something happened that was quite keen.
Jed fell in and hit his head,
He could have drowned, but no, instead,
Bob jumped in and rescued him,
And now Jed is as nice as Tiny Tim.”
The passengers roared with laughter.
Stop
The passengers are released,
And trade places with others,
Hey now, what’s this?
A small band of musicians,
Arrive on the train.
They start playing their music,
And people put down their papers and clap.
The music cheers even the most unruly people up.
It’s happy and quick and everyone loves it.
Stop
The passengers are released,
And trade places with others.
Now I get off and walk down the street.
I walk into the house and I hear,
On the record player, “What a wonderful world.”
Photo by Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash
Writer by Grace 