Yearbook of 1933

You sit at your desk at school now, but eighty years ago there was somebody else doing the same thing. Worrying about the big test, crushing on the person sitting three seats away, etc.

Ancestors, ancestors,

Do hear my cries.

Tell me, how was it like before

You all went and died.

Did you sit in these classrooms,

Did you run down these halls?

Did you weep behind the stairwell

Or in bathroom stalls?

I try so hard to see you

In your pleated skirts,

Your large, horn-rimmed glasses,

Your button-down shirts.

How much alike are we;

Do we share traits at all?

Do we laugh aloud the same way

When someone else falls?

Ancestors, ancestors,

If you were now here,

Would you smile at the world before

You re-disappeared?

Author's Note

For fashion class in high school, I got to sit all period and look through old yearbooks to see how fads have changed. I couldn't tell the difference between the students and the teachers in most of the pictures - they all looked so grown up. But then I realized, these were kids my age. I was sitting in the same exact place they were sitting.

Reviews

[Stammers]

'Tell me, how was it like before' -

I think either 'tell me how things were...' or ' tell me what it was like...' or ' tell me, what was it like...' would be correct grammar here.

And I didn't know if you were using 1933 as a pointed historical year, other than just because it was exactly 100 years ago. I thought you might be making a point about their likely fates (I'm sure you know Hitler was elected in 1933, most of the male students would have been fighting by 1939, or 1941/1942, depending on if you're British or American, that is) This is why I clicked to read the poem. Adds a dark echo to your musings.

I liked that you detailed their uniforms, added a little quirk.

[Laura E. Aranda]

i teach and often walk down the very hallways that i graduated from and where my mother and all her sisters graduated from......love this poem. this is the first one i have read by you and it captivated me from start to finish. the title made it a little too predictable but it was a good read all the same

[Shalini Dinesh]

They would just go back to dead life, but some may feel awe and like this fashionable life more, good poem, i enjoyed reading it

[Samuel Dickens]

It's comforting to see a young person like yourself think along these lines, because so many think their circumstances are different and that no one else has gone through what they have. Of course things are the same! Fashions change, but not much else.

[Kenneth The Poet]

Nice work, tight rhyme, tight rhythm. And the message, timeless.

[Hotwater]

Yes, it's a super poem from a super idea, it you undressed everyone through time and all had the same hair do... you just wouldn't know. Good work here.
*bird*

[Antonio Valentino]

I wonder too if they would smile. As oddly different as they seem to you, that is the same way your grandkids will look at your gen once you've reached your 60/70's

The more things change, the more things stay the same yes.

I'm glad i got to read this, it was very inciteful, you're a good writer, keep it up.

Antonio :)

[Ramiz Ilham Khan]

Superb. HUGS to you for writing it :-)

[J Todd Underhill]

Wow I liked this one for sure, this made me think of my folks and the schools that they went to that I eventually attended. I could see at times the faded shapes of my parents walking the hall when they were my age. Thank you!

[Q.Kennedy]

I love the idea of this. Very well written, too.
: )