BILLY MITCHELL

Today in my mind but yesterday was a long time ago,

I think of you, a place and a school, I was a little boy.

It was nineteen sixty-seven, Kindergarten and you,

The first day of school is recalled in my mind, a boy I saw cry,

His name Was Cotero, I think of those clowns on a wall.

Are they still there? I wonder, swingsets and young friends,

A boy named Grover, Duck, Duck, goose, Graham crackers and milk.

Naptime, I remember the cabinets with cartoonish pictures,

Reading time was the best, Foldout books, three-dimensional stories,

Hansel and Gretel, all the best, I was there until nineteen seventy.

Hard to remember the teachers’ names, Mrs. Scott back in second grade,

I think it was Mr. Kelly, Principal with dark hair and glasses,

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt was a song in the Cafeteria.

After school and on the weekends you could play games,

Carroms, maze, and more, Billy Mitchell, when once I was a child.

Friends, Jeff, James, Jimmy, and Alan, wherever they are, I remember,

There was a bell back then known as the freeze bell, stand very still.

We all have our childhood, our memories, a town to call home, then we roam,

Billy Mitchell, I find myself wandering back to you, memories of a school.

Keith Garrett