Yes, another true story. Worked better than I thought it would. Shows how dramatic I can be when I need to be or want to be. Must be all those years of high school speech tournaments, when I got them laughing with “Little Orphan Annie” or crying real tears over “The Highwayman.”

Not sure I could do it now, not sure I want to try.

They liked it well enough for The Clearing House for the Contemporary Educator in Middle and Secondary Schools, Volume 60, Number 1, September 1986, gave me a whole page for five poems. Here’s the one I was talking about.

ELEVEN YEARS

Eleven years I have smoothed
the brows of children
who leave me and complain
of emptiness
I tell them of the time
when
something from nothing
aloud
at a party
I read
with great feeling
a page of
the phonebook
and everyone wept
at the fullness of life