Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I watched as I fed the fire

With my teaching thoughts and desires

Papers, strategies,…projects undone

No one with whom to share the fun

I watched as the fire grew and grew

I watched as the flames ate it through

I am too young to be sitting here alone

I feel like I have been hit by a drone

Retirement…what is to become of me?

“Goodbye Mr. Chips”  unsettles the free

My heart is shattered and torn

For the children I was born

What is life, if there is no one to receive?

Retirement…time….did deceive

Fifty-five and older

No one desires your shoulder

I took the boxes of my ideas–remnants

And fed the fire amid the students absence

Vitriolic criticism rides my soul

Why am I here…with nowhere to go