Numbered Words

The very first time i taught David and his sister Sharon, they were these cute 8 and 9-year-old siblings whose strikingly different personalities explained their mutual dislike for each other. That was almost nine years ago. Last year Sharon graduated from senior high school and went back to their homeland for college, whereas her poker-faced brother David was left behind, along with their little brother Samuel, to finish senior high school at an international school here. How these kids have grown right before my very eyes! It makes me feel proud to have taken a good part in molding them through our regular weekly writing and Literature classes. David, though still reticent and unimpressionable as always, is now several heads taller than me and has quite a head for numbers. Though i can already surmise how he would be like as a young man once he gets past the awkward teenage years, to this day, i am still amused at how David "squirms in his seat" whenever he is pressed to stay put for 3 long hours of writing classes with me LOL. It was during one of our agonizingly long lessons in poetry writing that i realized i did not really lose my natural penchant for poetry. This one, a sonnet with specified parameters indicated, served as the example i wrote for David on the spot to serve as his pattern. And as is my typical style, my sarcasm came to the fore. Thus, i came up with this amusing poem detailing my observation of David while he secretly squirms as he stares at his blank sheet of paper for hours on end. Shaking his head, until now it still puzzles him why i can manage to pen poems in half an hour or even less at times, when he could not even finish given the 2 1/2 or more hours he spends trying to write one.


Numbered Words


David, all baffled, wracks his sorry brain hard
To make grades worthy of his report card.
One word, then another to make a rhyme,
And write a fine poem done in perfect time
His mind built for numbers, how do words fit?
He thinks and thinks, oh, how long must he sit?
Till the right words come and enter his mind
Think, think harder of words of every kind.
Till then he struggles, squirming in his seat;
He thinks without halt not even to eat.
Night becomes day, he remains oblivious.
Is he done? Why ask? Is it not obvious?

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