Poem: August 26, 2021

Pacing Guide

Let’s make an accounting

of what we will let go and

what we will keep. I will keep

the days when one of us

misspeaks and we laugh

because messing up is funny.

And I will let go of feeling

important because I am known

instead of because I am here.

I will keep the lessons 

that feel like conversations,

but not the ones that feel

like the middle of an empty room. 

I will let go of the hoops through

which I am prone to jump.

I will keep an easy stride,

a gentle tone, a slow going.

I will keep my focus on this road.

Poem: August 25, 2021

If Someone Took the Perfect Picture of Me- 1st Writing Club Meeting

I think I am a little younger here, 

standing on this wooded path where

the autumn colors- gold, red, orange-

stretch behind me into the shadows.

I am alone between the splashes

of sunlight that break through the canopy

and create their mosaic on the grey-tan

floor on which I am standing.

My guess is I am dressed in layers-

faded blue jeans, grey t-shirt, red henley, 

my old threadbare olive drab jacket.

My hiking boots, stained and faded,

kick up the dust as I walk, so I suppose

I am also carrying a hiking stick-

something to make my next steps easier.

I see myself wiping the sweat off my face

with the red bandana wrapped around my wrist

as I look up to see a bard owl take flight

just as the photo is snapped. You find this

hidden in the pages of an old copy

of The Odyssey, and so you remember me.

Poem: August 24, 2021

Last Wednesday

I managed to arrive at school early

with the sun still peeking over

the trees and ball field and stadium,

and because of the mist drifting

just above the ground,

and because of the huge presence

of the moon that had yet to find

its way below the horizon,

and because I was tired,

everything seemed to be a dream

that I could peel away, 

a stray, half-waking moment, 

a way back into a dream state.

I lost myself among a flock of geese,

gathered in the grass at the edge

of the chain link fences, 

so many exclamation points,

strange and sociable, picking at worms.

Poem: August 23, 2021

Confession

Not to be a creeper,

but I like to watch you all

while you work together,

so serious and casual,

like a working lunch

and a sleepover, meeting

in my classroom. I think

my joy comes from some

sense of myself at your age,

as if you are a living photo

album, a scrapbook reminder

of how it felt to love my friends,

their voices and their hands,

and to love the strange

new lands that our minds

could inhabit, explore and 

define together, how we 

could be so funny, so smart

and amazing to each other.

I like seeing you and 

remembering what it’s like

To have all that room to expand.

Poem: August 20, 2021

All in a Day’s Work

Today we talked about football

and radios and National Toothfairy Day.

We referenced the Hero’s Journey

and Grendel, the Norman conquest

as well as the Anglo Saxons, 

Christianity and Paganism and point of view.

We took a class selfie (fully masked),

and found time to chat about the history of makeup.

The cost of class sets of books came up

and how we find the money to cover the cost.

And we got lost for a while in iambic pentameter

and Shakespeare’s mistress and second best bed.

And, of course, Disney World was mentioned

before we landed on Hemingway

and elephants and abortions and drinks

and all the things that go unsaid.

And on the way out the door one student

mentioned that she felt like an adult in class today.

Poem: August 19, 2021

 Analysis

Annie asks me to help interpret

her best friend’s, Ryan’s, dream,

which is just a trick I picked up

a decade or so ago- basic symbols- 

any literature major could do it.

It’s fun in the same way that 

analyzing a poem is fun.

You look at the whole, then

you take it apart- each noun

is just a symbol, each action

a parallel action, each adjective

A significant clue to the cypher.

I look for patterns- vines and 

windowless rooms- someone

feels trapped. It’s the same

in the waking world. Who doesn’t?

Poem: August 18, 2021

First We Put Them In Rows

First we put them in rows,

all facing forward, toward the board,

three feet apart, center to center,

not edge to edge, thirty desks total.

The front left leg of the desk is

aligned to the blue tape on the floor.

Then we took their cell phones.

They are to drop them in the pocket

with the number that matches

the printed number on their desks.

The pockets are in the closet.

We close the door when class begins.

Now we require them to wear their masks

at all times, both inside and outside class.

Properly- covering both nose and mouth-

whether vaccinated or not. We are all

In this thing together. We all share the air.

Masks should not include political phrases.

I see that a part of my students has died. 

I see it like a smudge on a window.

They know that we know what’s good for them.

They can recite the justifications.

They can quote the guidance.

But we all still know what was lost.

 

Poem: August 17, 2021

Initiating Energy

It happens when

we analyze a poem.

I’m at the board

and I ask, 

What do you see?

And at first

the room hesitates, 

looks down 

at its collective feet

until one half-hand

has the half-courage

to half-lift itself up

just enough so I notice

and a quiet voice asks,

Did anyone else think it was weird that…

and then, yes, so many

ideas falling over each other- what if,

but couldn’t it, I imagined, why not, 

connotation, end stop, reversal, personification, tone-

and I say prove it 

and step aside to let the big idea bus through.

Then, 

when it all

winds down

to a long 

pause,

I say, Look at the title. Have you considered the title?

And then smile to hear the engine rev.

 

Poem: August 16, 2021

Room with a View

My plants help bring the outside in,

especially when the sunlight hits

the courtyard in the morning and

brings out the bright green ground

cover nearest the windows and

gradually blends itself away into 

shadow at the far end of the yard,

so that everything is one green

sightline on either side of the glass,

as if you could pass uninterrupted

from fluorescent to ambient, as if you

could smell the mulch and sweet

flora and walk away from the clocks.

Poem: August 13, 2021

Weighty

You could literally kill somebody with this thing,

she said, hoisting the school-assigned anthology

up above her head, and it’s true, what she said.

The Bedford is a great, hardbound brick of a book.

It has that look about it, so hunkered down and

immovable, dense with all those thin pages.

This chunky tome carries its own gravity, so full

of eras and genres and agreed upon literary merit,

as heavy as Hamlet’s heart, as expansive as

Whitman’s leaves of grass, as solidly true as

Maya Angelou, beautiful but too much too.

Can we leave it in our lockers? Can we leave it in your room?

Poem: August 12, 2021

Mentor

Some kids make you work for it

because maybe they are bored or

because this morning something

bigger than an anticipation activity

and bigger than the notes we plan

to take today took place like an

earthquake, and now they aren’t 

really feeling the hero’s journey.

They just want to refuse the call.

They just need to refuse it all.

 

Poem: August 11, 2021

Bus Duty

Wednesday afternoon and all the kids

gathered in front of the building, waiting

for their rides know that today is a summer day,

even if this is the third day of fall semester,

because, my god, the heat index is somewhere

north of ninety-five degrees and the humidity

is the kind you can wade around in. Move

too fast and you’ll splash the person next to you.

Everyone looks kind of slumped and sleepy

and stuck to their clothes. Everyone looks broken.

Best to get home to the AC and a dark room.

Best not to move around too much.

Poem: August 10, 2021

Teacher Tired

If you do it right, teacher tired

is the kind of tired you feel

after hosting an eight hour party

in which the guests laugh

and find your home so very

charming, and you must share

your secrets, as this space

seems to insist on growing 

louder of its own happy accord

while you flit from corner 

to corner checking on the guests,

even the quiet ones who

like to sit there and take it

all in, clearly in it, but not going

to make the same splash,

demur and detached while

The rest of them gather 

hungrily around the spread

of questions you’ve laid out, 

and if they eat it all up, there you

are, landing just long enough

to drop some accelerant onto

fading fires, another round into

empty glasses, then FOOM, 

off to find another circle 

that has settled into silence,

like some darting thought fairy,

peppering the room with glittering

big ideas until the bell rings and

everyone, smiling and bleary,

makes their way towards the door.

Poem: August 9, 2021

 First Day of School

The first day can be a lot,

With all of the procedures

And new cell phone policies,

Herding groups in packs

Of thirty, shuffling in the halls,

And five minutes later,

Alighting in some new room,

Basically the same as the 

Last room and the next, 

Sitting in assigned seats, 

Completing notecards, and

Repeating ice breakers and

Introductions- neat, snaking

Relays of impersonal personal

Information- name, where

You have been, where

You are going, then, something

Quirky about yourself, over

And over until we all want

To know if we can just

Get this started, even if we

Just met, even if we haven’t

Learned each other’s names 

In our eight hours of sameness.

Can we quit dancing already, 

And just break something open?