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?