Shiny With The Dew Of Optimism

The delightful signs of spring, two peach trees blossoming in soft pink

while the prune tree’s festooned with white blossoms, taking me back

to high school when we took these blossoms to school to adorn class-

rooms and everything seemed fresh and new, blue uniforms with white

 

Shirts, the English teacher letting us write adverts, unprepared speech

I could use my Eliza Dolittle accent - I washed me hands and me face

before I come, I did - we sang on the stairwell, making such a noise was

forbidden, but our principal was laughing so much, he couldn’t stop us

 

Preparing small plays for the German class - forming a funeral group,

reciting Goethe looking lugubrious with lachrymose facial expressions,

singing in the school choir with a bag of sweets clutched under my arm

watching a biology teacher camouflaged in green disappearing against

 

The green board, presenting our own poem to the Afrikaans teacher for

analysis and giggling as schoolgirls do; she thought it was an example

of modern poetry - using a BBC-based fake Russian accent to deliver

an impassioned argument why I, a Russian spy, should be sent to Mars

 

At the year-end debate, to enjoy the principal’s imitation of my accent

the next day after winning, of course; doing a scene from ‘Siener in die

Suburbs’ at the Eisteddfod - I have lovely memories of my school days,

adorned with sweet, fresh blossoms - shiny with the dew of optimism!

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[Siener in die Suburbs: An Afrikaans play]