True Music

Playing an instrument is like reading a book
With each stroke, the plot thickens and creates a hook
It starts off happy, until disaster comes
Music explodes like thunder then is followed by quiet hums
Caused by the disaster no one knew would come

Music begins returning as a hero appears in the gloom
Slowly, a magnificent crescendo fills the room
For the hero began the battle with the dreaded evil that lay before him
The song’s intense, as well as the battle
But the hero is winning, and his rival starts to cower

For the battle is finally over
As peace is restored to the land
Both with song and story
Beginning to end

Kevin is an eighth grader in Janet Freece’s Language Arts class at Mt. Solo Middle School in Longview. I visited last month and had the pleasure of hearing Kevin and many of his classmates recite their own poems as well as classic poems like “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service and “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop. They had also worked on a project “interviewing” dead poets, and turned some of their questions on me. Congratulations to Janet for creating so much enthusiasm in her classroom for poetry!