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Topic: First Day of School (06/28/04)
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TITLE: Summer Is Not Spent By John Scott Cooper 06/28/04 |
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before the gleaming sun has burnished last year's end.
Catching waves, exploring caves, reading books, catching looks,
daydreaming and even earning at part-time jobs
essentially cannot be done; there is no time.
Fantastic is it not that the bounty of youth,
gathered during nine months toil to spend in the sun,
has to halt its expense before autumn begins?
Incredulous children once again count the days;
joyless teens are mired in a cold, mind-numbing bog,
kicking against fun-ending, spirit-ending traces,
locked in a shortened loop, circling back to classes.
Matchless were the days when summers seemed so endless.
No thoughts of school intruded on the thrill of youth.
Only a devil could conceive of the notion,
Proposing that school devour the bulk of the year.
Quell the ambitions of educators to teach;
restrain the administrators need to control;
stamp out this deviltry that tries to end childhood
to program the minds, the time and hearts of our kids.
Unleash a horde of vile stinging flies on the whole
viperous bunch, who pretend to be children's friends,
while focusing devices that thwart who they are;
xeroxing pliant minds into robotic kind.
Yell at the unheeding powers that seek your ill!
Zealously embrace summer, whose end comes too soon.