The lights, the noise, the heat
Will be missed by all
The blood, sweat, tears
Shed by all 
It happens once a year
But only in the fall
Not one man but many men on one mission 
To win it all
They come together to be one
Some standing against the wall but
All standing tall
From the first whistle to the sound of the clocks [...]

The angel of self-discipline, her guardian
Since she first knew and had to go away
From home that spring to have her child with strangers,
Sustained her, till the vanished boy next door
And her ordeal seemed fiction, and the true
Her mother’s firm insistence she was the mother
And the neighbors’ acquiescence. So she taught school,
Walking a mile each way [...]