The Last Ones To Know Poem by Shirley Anne Alexander

The Last Ones To Know


In Miss Langford's fifth grade class
at the old Benton School,
we could not have known
as we stood
hands to heart,
side by side,
voices lifted
to brisk November air.

We did not know
as we pulled hands from heart
and clasped them over breast,
small voices lifted in prayer,
eyes shut tightly against the approaching decades
of our reform;

we could not have known,
we would be
the last generation
to stand united in a small school yard,
heads bowed with innocence
under red stripes, white stars,
and God's blue heaven.

© Shirley Alexander