My High School Choir Poem by Herbert Nehrlich

It was expected to belong.
A boy who has his sights
aimed high,
who aims to make
his parents proud,
will show respectability
and rise above the common folks.

It was the driving force
that made me join the choir,
a voice of mediocre quality
would not disgrace the school
as it was mixed into the crowd
of screaming baritones,
of pubescent basses and the lone
and rather spindly looking pallor
who, as a rarity, was an essential tenor.

When teenage vocal cords perform,
there is an awe that settles in the hall,
or auditorium, it clings to dusty walls
and rests among the cobwebs of the past.
And hearts pick up their happy beat
as if to shout about their sheer invincibility,
each ear, as it partakes the sum of all,
of loud, angelic voices oh, so pure,
claims ownership of the collage of tones
impressed and stirred to greater deeds,
while restless eyes now roam, subdued
search rows of colleagues in the amber light
until they find that pair of mellow molecules,
look back into the innocence of all,
and tiny promises now sing a melody.