Max Reif - .33) Photo: Miss Lindahl's 5th Grade Class, Flynn Park School,1959

2014-11-07 8

Where are you, boys and girls
of Miss Lindahl's 5th grade class?

What became of you
when you slipped off
the far edge of my world?

Many of you
I never saw again,
or even thought of
until I saw this picture,

yet you occupy a place
that can't be filled
by anyone but you —

so much yourselves,
untrained as yet
in putting on a face.

Your faces are colors
long forgotten,
your names sound notes
of a long-lost scale:

Harvey Baer, Gail Rutherford,
Marion Phipps, Jonathon Katz,
Temmy Goldwasser, Randy Wahl —

your names are bells that angels ring,
tolling the music of the spheres.

Max Reif

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/33-photo-miss-lindahl-s-5th-grade-class-flynn-park-school-1959/