Blue Grass state

Blue grass state

John Clare Stokes

Six grade can last a lifetime

It did for the tow headed poet

Never advancing beyond

Mrs Turners homeroom

Hiding beneath the desk

during daily nuclear war drill

Deciding it won’t ever get better

But in that summer of sixty seven

He had to move on

To a state of Bahia grass

Sandspurs and allergy

Not even Ann or Pam or Missy 

could make him get beyond

the grass of Kentucky

He’d take to grotto trees

He’d take to canoes down Rainbows

He’d take to sandhill hippies

Even tried to be a basketball star

for that is expected of Blue grass boys

But he wasn’t much good

Maybe for a white boy

Far cry from Truby or Dean

But back to the sixth grade

Recently the poet found where

the source of the blue grass 

zenith in life dwelled

Looking in at the sixty something year

old Girl Scout 

He slowly backed away

Not to disturb a life looking

so happy

The sixth grader finally graduated 

beyond the blue grass state