Come hear the music in each child’s smile!
Come feel the spirit as they sit and learn!
Come watch the lights in their eyes stretch a mile!
Come smell the speed as their busy pens burn!
Come walk halls tiled with gold-plated pensions!
Come turn taps filled with school-dinner custard!
Come work six-hour days, no stress, no tensions!
Come drink down Skivers’ Arms, never flustered!
But, from the pub windows, I don’t see queues
of applicants desperate for the chance
to pass cold kettles and unused staff loos.
I don’t taste envy of my circumstance.
If I had ready meals for hungry minds,
tell me, would I be more or less maligned?