Fragment (2): Mr. Allen

(from a former student, with esteem & gratitude)

Was it the jangling of pocket change or keys to his Mustang as he strode into class, or the reproachful looks to 'knuckleheads' everywhere who hadn't learnt their fractions yet,

that'd endeared him to me most;

or perhaps even the adjacent inner courtyard with Madonna and forsythias at her feet that

was the perfect backdrop to a teacher's own shining person, each day a different jacket &

different mood. green for mean, paisley for happy, etc.; and wasn't it the impishness of a favorite teacher who'd upended a book I was reading as I held the recess door open,

at the same time smiling and stepping gingerly past in his brogues and winter scarf;

or was it his Dylan and Billy J. Kramer music sung to his students as sad as the "trains and

boats and planes" that would soon take him away from me, too, whose wispy vocals were (as I see now) a perfect sign of the elegant balladeer slouched over his guitar; or perhaps

years later would it be the willful decision of an impressionable kid to imitate the jaunty step myself and penchant for blazers and briefcases of one Don E. Allen (E for Ebenezer!);

or a post -Summer of Love world that seemed cruelly inhospitable to shared music, Marian courtyards and the young teacher's perennial wide-eyed love of paisley and unopened readers?

(2021)