I am an old Dragon
To be precise an Old Draconian
Old in man years anyway
Almost three score years and ten
Though that is probably young
As dragons go – joined in ‘62
Leaving class of ‘66.
We wore a uniform of
Rufty-tufty, navy-blue corduroy
No namby-pamby
“How To Train Your Dragon” this…
Boys with siblings from older clutches
Inherited the faded battle dress style
Uniforms – wore them with pride.
We learned to swim in a river
Conquering our fear of Willow roots
Reaching for our doggy paddling legs
And on the playing fields in late summer
A whole barrel of cherries would appear
For our delectation and at another time
Also, we presumed, the gift of an Old Dragon
A crate of pomegranates appeared
To introduce our tastebuds to the exotic.
Seasonally, we played marbles
Tricky enough when our playground
Sloped from all directions
To a central drain and my best friend
Espying the gathered horde collected there
Lifted the grate and clawed up
Aggies, bottle tops and common spirals
But lost a nail replacing
The heavy cast iron piece
Causing blood to flow
Unfelt with the shock.
Most Dragons scions
Of the rich and good of the land
Knowing their path to wealth
Would be smoothed at every step
But I came from humbler stock
Yet my parents, believing that
Rubbing shoulders with the best
– Though not a comfortable experience
For the young dragon, I was-
Suffering mildly from imposter syndrome
– Would alone be preparation
For life’s later battles
They scrimped and saved
That I might attend
The Dragon School, Oxford…
Andrew Wilson, 2024
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Poetics invites us to write about Legendary Creatures which as you have read, I, albeit modestly, must count myself amongst…
https://www.dragonschool.org/
Your whimsical old dragon made me smile, Andrew. Your poem is nostalgic, wistful and whimsical, and in my mind I saw a proud dragon in a ‘uniform of rufty-tufty, navy-blue corduroy’. Your poem has echoes of Dylan Thomas’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, especially the lines:
‘We learned to swim in a river
Conquering our fear of Willow roots
Reaching for our doggy paddling legs’.
I used to love playing marbles on a drain! My favourites were the deep blue and coca cola coloured ones.
Interesting tale and school – a sort of apprenticeship to a guild girding professional life … In the US, only military academies come close, another lamentable loss in the initiation of youth. Modernity has lost so much slaying all its dragons.