Marks on a page without any real meaning
Penmanship learnt gripped by tiny young hands
Uprights, strokes and slants of calligraphy
Dotted tracings to follow, rules and spans

Repeat, repeat ABCs and then one two threes
From cats on mats to Pythagoras theorem
Trains travelling from A to B calculate speeds
Grammar, verb and nouns are taught ‘em

Reciting words and afterwards raffia crafts
Milk monitor duty and lunchtime ‘tween
Fig trees, play swings and baking hot parades
All swear allegiance to a foreign queen

A uniform of grey and bands of maroon
Walking sisters to school, responsibility
Inventing pedal cars and rocket ships
Making new friends also just as easily

Crushes on teacher, chalk dusters clean
Disappointed to hear how racism sounds
In neoclassical imposing brick edifices
High on the hill above corroboree grounds

Down in the vale the workshops spread
This where the future of most of us lay
Worked there for a while in later years
Till my true calling led along a different way