As the school year comes to an end, lots of kids are counting down the days until summer vacation. There’s something exciting about the last few weeks of school: turning in your books, cleaning out your desk, and looking forward to sunny days, sleeping in, and all the fun that summer brings. But the end of the school year can also feel a little bittersweet. Along with saying goodbye to homework and classrooms, you’re also saying goodbye, for a little while at least, to teachers, classmates, playgrounds, and all the routines that made up your year.
That’s what inspired me to write this poem. I wanted to capture that mixture of feelings: the excitement of summer vacation and the realization that there are things about school you’ll actually miss when the year is over. So this poem became a list of goodbyes to some of the little moments and places that make a school year memorable.
Goodbye School Year
Goodbye school year.
You were fun.
But once more
your time is done.
Goodbye classroom.
Goodbye bell.
Goodbye Friday
show-and-tell.
Goodbye playground.
Goodbye slide.
Goodbye games
we played outside.
Goodbye gym
and music too.
Goodbye homework.
(Done with you!)
Goodbye friends.
I’ll miss you all.
Meet you back here
in the fall.
— Kenn Nesbitt
