Once More--and Always--to the Lake

My heart leaves on the waves
The tide takes it out, out

My soul sinks into the sand
The water washes it out, out

Into the water
Onto the shore

Small sweet sea
Enmeshes me

I touch the moon and sun
Light lapping in the watery net

Where I’m caught, caught.
Never let me out.

Green Ghosts

A gate on the High Way

Land escapes
where green ghosts gather

My soul, we will go to them!
My soul, we will speak to them!

A road of days until I am all windows
No engine but the wind

Land escapes
where green ghosts gather

A gate on the High Way

Open

Horizontal Doors

Open with a press
Let them with a finger
Let them with a kiss

Against each other:
With

close
still
Close

Tender knocks, hard blushes
Wet-hinged red wood

Open with a word
Open with a kiss

What Teaching Is Like

Esme Raji Codell, a young teacher, aptly says about teaching: “They don’t tell you it’s like [...] going to hell or sleepwalking or being afraid, afraid as you were when you were small.”

9th-Graders' Wisdom

Said to me very earnestly by one of my 9th-graders:
"Ms. C, you're my role model. But I don't want to be like you."

I often use the word "nerd" as a verb--like when students leave, I charge them to, "Nerd! Nerd! Nerd!" So one of my 9th-graders one day adds,
"Go forth and nerd!"

When meeting with one of my struggling 9th-graders, asking what else I could do to help, he answered, "Teachers can only do so much." I wish he could hold a press conference and tell the nation that.