Bringing It All Back Home

“the smallest sprout shows there is really no death” [Whitman]

the places we go that mean the most leave traces

in us matching the prints we left, a little dirt here

& there that marks our being there, our respect

for the moments spent together or alone, within

the sacred spot, the gathering place, the haunt

though there is really no going home, home shifts

like a satellite disguised as planet so slowly making

a way across the vast unempty,  detected but not

known, unknowable until the orbit ends in slow

oblivion, then the many pieces sort out one by one

when happiness settles in the lines around a mouth

something changes in the brain allowing an unusual

connectivity to link ego & sound, sight, feeling, urge,

sending a slow building pulse through the body whose

consistency converts inclination into faith into certainty:

this can never go away because it is a part of me

when pain & loss settle in the tributaries of the eyes

something triggers these same memories, though

the certainty fades to doubt, denial & disillusion,

still the faithful call out in prayer & skeptics clinch

down upon the traces of what was & might still be

answers, hard to come by, float up as pond steam

on a morning that seemed too cool for fog or storm

or the look of a cloud suggests a known place, sun

hanging through an evening in such a way as to

bring back a day’s feeling thought unrecoverable:

could it be possible that you know what I mean?

are you listening to these thoughts  as footprints

of a former life, lived & shared, slowly reappear

as blue grey cloud, & jet-stream trails lead to some

reunion, homecoming, or dream-haunted home?

if we wait patiently, will you really meet us there?

Stop all the clocks.

[B.J.H.]

Everybody’s Friend

Brian at Inspiration Point, Grand Canyon N.P. 1997

[for B. J. H. ]

“But, my brother, don’t let your lantern darken…”
     [Bryan John Appleby, “The Lake”]

This morning, driving south, out of

the hazy black of a once full moon,

the east sent up a glory of amber

orange, pink, purple, & finally all blue.

I thought of you, but you were already

there in my mind as the morning’s music

suggested struggle, pain, & yet tenacity, too,

the quality most evident behind your modesty.

Just as the universe holds together its parts,

& the wheels of my car handle the swift turns

of a morning’s commute, a magnetism pulls us

for our own good towards you for strength & stability.

There you are, everybody’s friend, holding us up

without raising a finger, but painfully curving

a grimace into an unaffected smile:  the brilliance

of generosity that gives & gives, never running out.

Tonight as I drive the same road back home,

arriving before that same sun sets in similar glory,

I’ll still be thinking of you there, family gathered close

hoping, somewhere, there is a light that never goes out.

I’ll save some last thoughts, as always, before sleep

comes & removes the day’s small sufferings & joys.

I’ll say to whomever might be listening that there

is a man, a brother, who helps hold a world together.

I’ll say: his love needs some more time to give.

For Ed Bedford

That time we fished below the dam,
the crane appeared, as white as Sunday,
and impressed me more than any fish,
and I didn't catch a single, slippery one
and you slow reeled the morning away.

Everyone knows you don't need to talk
when the thin line glides the water.
And at breakfast, talk's but a background
for a meal that's never rivaled by ones whose
starched white cloth might once have been nurses' hats.

This is friendship. It doesn't need a lot of wordiness.
For that reason, its poems often sing too much.
Take Dick's "Last Words" for J. W.,
a poem worth loving without praise because it makes
of friendship & poetry something stronger than critique.

But there is more (and less) to all of this. Time
makes its holes in everything, from memory to resolve.
Even on the good days it's simply that you catch the same fish twice.
A lack of fame doesn't hurt as much as it seemed,
and a lack of love would burn bitterness through & through.

The thing about friendship is it doesn't come & go.
Neither time's speed nor distance's slip avails
when we need a break from pretending we were someone else.
A friend always sees more than he tells and waits for the light
to break when a dark time is needed to avoid the mirror.

Of all the Eds I've known in adult years, it's only
you who'd accept the title.Though acclaim eludes,
poetry's always at the edge of what we say.
We only fished that once, and that without much luck,
but when the bird finally flies, I hope you'll be there too.

There My Be Ten or Twelve Things...

There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve ...

I've always admired teachers.

My best moments with my grandmother, my mom's mom, were when she got caught up in old stories or listened with the interest of a [former] teacher. This didn't happen that often, but I remember those times when it did.

My mother, as selfless a human being as I've ever known, taught kindergarten for decades with all the kindness and compassion of a saint on the earth.

My two irreplaceable and irreproachable sisters, both now professional educators, sacrificed (or just spent) their after school time and summers playing ‘school’ with me until I was old enough to go there myself; I went straight to kindergarten—sister school being a good enough pre-school.

My father was a natural ‘doer’ but not a natural teacher. However, he did try. One of my last and most prized memories with him involved him ‘teaching’ me how to install a car stereo. He also taught me how to pray without anyone needing to know, how to be a loving husband, and how to be a reliable dad. He taught much more than he ever knew.

In finding the love of my life, I found another teacher. And I found her in school of all places: a course in World Religions. She still hasn’t let me live down skipping class on the day that she presented her biography of Gandhi, but I bet she can’t remember my favorite section of the Tao Te Ching either. Now, she dedicates her days to helping the youngest strugglers one by one by one with infinite love and kindness that never ceases to impress me.

So, I guess it is no wonder that I spend my days in a room full of books, and minds, and ideas hoping to inspire at least in a few a means to making a continuing and meaningful education.

At some point, in what must have been dire need, the educational bureaucracy decided that I was qualified to supervise future teachers, and the first go not ending in utter failure (long live Mr. Dixey!), they let me try again. Enter Ms. Amanda.

________________________________

Teacher

For writing—being a writer—always seems to the writer to be of dubious value. […] 

Teaching—even the teaching of writing—is altogether different. Teaching is an act of communication, sympathy—a reaching-out—a wish to share knowledge, skills; a rapport with others, who are students; a way of allowing others into the solitariness of one’s soul.

Joyce Carol Oates, "I Am Sorry to Inform You"

Schopenhauer was a pessimist but
he played the flute.

William Stafford, "Things I Learned Last Week"

I.

There were two nuns, two years apart, in two different towns, each taught me  something about what it means to read, to know, to speak, listen, and teach. 

If not for one, I'd be much less kind. If not for the other, I don't see a world 

in which I'd be writing this, having read that, or known any of you.

II.

Nearly ten years ago, I was the intern, twenty-five years old & rough around the edges. Mary was my mentor, without whose endearing example, along with her good word, I wouldn’t have landed this job. We don’t talk much these days, but I think of her often for the help that she gave.

It’s been a charmed ten years. I’ve made friends from colleagues, who remain close by even when they go. I wouldn’t be writing this without them, and because of the luck of the draw, or the hand of fate, this last twelve weeks we got one more.

III.

I’ve never been the type to say everything happens for a reason, but I know that things happening is the only reason I’ve ever found. Where we are matters much more than where we’ve been, even though we spend a lot of time thinking and writing about having been there. When it’s said and done, where we are going is never anywhere else than where we end up.

Though we can’t stay forever, we all ended up here, and that is all the difference that can be made.

IV.

Teachers are givers, and not just of tests. It occasionally hurts to put a version of you out there to face apathy or rejection, and sometimes it’s hard to recognize yourself in the bathroom mirror, but hours build into days and days somehow into years. The faces return without the names and the memories they carry (and they’re usually better than you thought) give back whole years you thought you might have wasted.

Some mornings a teacher remains alone when the crowd slumps in; some days they buoy you up like a much needed raft when you feel most tossed upon their seas. Afternoons can be devastatingly exhaustive, while whole evenings can be powered by a particular day’s educational highs.

Sometimes whole semesters are lost in a struggle for one lost lamb or one lion that you couldn’t  tame. This is unavoidable. It often hurts to care, but when you stop giving a damn, do everyone the favor of getting the hell out of the way.

After all, teachers are optimists; there’s no other way to make it through a year. When doldrums and disrespect start to drown out all joy, that’s when it’s time to pull out that flute and play the best Debussy you can muster. This is the gift you can give to all the friends you make along the way.

V.

Lastly, a little advice to our newest friend.

Write on the windows; tell questionable jokes.

Make plans and then change them; teach a lesson you’d never tell anyone about. 

Make up nicknames for the ones you love as often as the ones you can’t stand, and try not to neglect the ones in the middle.

Tell them when they let you down, but remind them that you’re not giving up.

Don’t take professional development any more seriously than you take yourself.

Most important of all, find a way to laugh in each class every day, even it’s you that you’re laughing at and even when they refuse to notice.