Have you ever spent months–or even years–working hard just to experience a single magical moment? And when that moment comes, will it live up to your childhood dreams? A high school sophomore shares a personal poem about one marching experience and all of the emotions leading up to it.
The sun, hot on my back
My heart, pounding inside my chest
The moment is coming, I thought
The moment I have been working towards
Ever since I first picked up
the small brass instrument
30 seconds! shouts the man
I knew not his name
We assemble in our formation
My adrenaline is going off the charts
And the moment is growing ever closer
Tweet tweet, goes the whistle
We go to parade rest,
mentally bracing ourselves for the task ahead
10 seconds! the man cried
Had it only been 20 seconds?
It had felt like 20 years
My heart beats faster and faster
As the moment inches closer and closer
Tweet tweeeeet tweet, goes the whistle again
MTH! We shout at the top of our lungs,
filling the air with that single, resonating cry
I take a look around in those final, solemn seconds
The calm before the storm
A silent prelude to the moment
GO! yells the man
And the world slowed to a halt
as the whistle sounded a third time
Tweeeeeeeeeet tweeeeet tweeeeet tweeeeet
UP!
The drum line started playing
The unit started marching
And as we turned the corner,
the crowd burst into applause
As we turn the corner,
I see it
My eyes lead me down the street
going to that magical castle
that every child dreams of seeing
And as the whistle sounded a final time
and we started playing our incredible music,
I knew
I knew that this was the moment
The one I would remember forever
About the Author: Matt Myslinski is a sophomore attending Mt. Hebron High School in Ellicott City, Md. He plays first trumpet in the marching band and in the symphonic winds band and had the opportunity to march at Walt Disney World in the spring of 2010. This poem was written for an English assignment in the fall of 2010. Matt chose to write about his experiences playing trumpet. Marching at Walt Disney World, however, took up about half of the poem. So he then decided to start from scratch and write the poem solely about this fantastic, singular experience and all of the emotions leading up to it. Matt plans to become an engineer and to continue playing trumpet on the side, hopefully in the Baltimore’s Marching Ravens or in another local band.
