A Soldier Boy

I found this poem by David Allen in my eighth grade English notebook dutifully copied from somewhere. The handwriting is no longer mine. My hand is no longer innocent.

A little girl asks
“Why must Johnny be a soldier boy?
How do all the wars begin?”
“People from different faiths,
Many different creed and skin,
Over questions of religion, dear, every war begins!”
Said mother of the little girl, knitting by the fireside.


On my recent visit to the school, I found that the rickety desk on which I sat through boring classes had long been broken down and dumped off. But the classroom still stands.

Is the girl or a boy who sits in my corner still read story books hidden inside their textbooks while the teacher writes on the blackboard? The answer, as Dylan sang, is blowing in the wind.