The Old Schoolhouse

I wanted to pay last respects
to an old friend;
one who taught me everything.
So, I gazed momentarily at the remains
of this old schoolhouse, falling from its
earliest foundation. Aged timber clearly warped,
a feeble stench from the bodies
of gray rodents lying across the rickety
floorboards. Relics of what used to be life
decorated the weed-choked floor
like tiny figurines. Parched insects
crumble beneath brittle bones, stuffed
from a feast long remembered.

Silver cobwebs stretched endlessly
across rigid beams, scarcely supporting
the delicate ceiling. Below the dust-covered
roof lie ancient manuscripts,
composed to lecture little boys and girls
who beheld an unquenchable thirst
for knowledge. Here, they would
gather together to pray and to write;
to read and to memorize
the Pledge of Allegiance.
Once inked in black markings,
but now faded beyond recollection,
words and phrases
that have been forgotten
simply diminish from the hearts
and minds of children I was
at one time acquainted with.

The yielding walls of this establishment,
painted in different shades of red,
white, and I believe a speck of blue,
creaked and moaned in utter pain.
I recall so well when I counted
backwards on my tiny, pale fingers
and attempt to comprehend Newton’s
complex law of gravity
without ever taking a peek at the book.
Its obvious departure
above the earth’s soil-ridden ground
has come into view, holding dear to the last
minutes of its existence.
I pushed against the broken door
and crossed the molded threshold, inhaled
a substantial amount of polluted air.

Here is where I say my last goodbye,
perhaps a familiar whisper,
like others before me-
My honorable praise to the last remaining walls
of a place I’d rather not remember at all.