The young woman
The young woman
Sits cross-legged
Her face wide with joy
She sings to an audience of mothers
As they bounce happy children
Upon their laps
Laughing in time to the rhythm
The guitar so deftly played
Strummed with simple pleasure
The song an old favourite
With its reference to Moonshadows
The sun peeps over the treetops
A silent sea sparkles and I am transported
To a different time
When a teacher sang a different tune
Nick nack paddy wack
Across the poor unfortunates
Backside...playing nick nack
With his sticks across the knuckles
Sending a poor boy home
With a flea in his ear
And wheals on his cheek
There was never any fear of reprisal
School was out of bounds to parents
Teacher knows best
Was the school motto
Oft repeated with a finger poke to the chest
It pays to remember where
We all came from
It will help us find out where we go
When the mind steps in time
To the beat of a tambourine
The Salvation Army band
Marched on a Sunday
They stood at the bottom of the street
Next to the bus stop
Too early for some people
Still trying to sleep off the effect
Of the night before
“Bringing in the sheaves'
Got short shrift from Arthur next door
A bull of a man
A pit deputy who carried his belt
Wrapped around his hand
When he stepped outside
To argue the toss with a tallyman
He always got an extension
He would wave the belt in the air
Bellowing at the conductor
Who recognised it was time to go
And they would march
To ‘Onward Christian soldiers’
Nodding as they passed old Arthur by
I think it might have been ironic
As a dainty little lady
Handed out the ‘War Cry’
From a bag hung over her shoulder
There was always a euphonium
As well as a short guy with a bass drum
He was trying to grow a moustache
The trumpeter had a beard
Played in a jazz band in a pub
Every Friday
How did he square that I wonder
Moonshadow, Moonshadow
Can bring me round full circle
Cat Stevens is Yusuf now
The schoolyard is an open space
Beside the sea
Mothers with children are singing
What a wonderful world
This can be.