Grateful....For The Seeds....It Sowed Poem by James B. Earley

Kept stored....within...its lofty place
...Alongside my kindergarten primer
Though its cover...time long faded
Its message well I remember

...It lauded me.....to the nth degree
Placing...upon my cap..a feather.....
Eight years having trudged to school
....Literally...through all kinds...of weather

Harsh winters...knee deep the snow
....Indeed those days were many
Dedicated....as it pointed out.....
Never missing...a day.....not any

"Perfect Attendance"...so it read
....Never tardy...at all....nor absent
Ever so often I'd regale my kids....
Of those...grammar school years...I spent

Recalling...fondly.....that noble award...
Grateful for the seeds it sowed
.....My children...adults...I finally admitted
Where I lived...was just across.....the road

Author's note:
Dedicated to the memory of Pleasant Ridge Grammar School - Mounds, Illinois. Miss Lilly Meeks, teaching grades 1 thru 4, walked across the graveled road as school began in 1939, inviting me at age five to join her first grade class.
Pleasant Ridge was one of many Black segregated schools long relegated, through integration, to the dust bins of history.