The Waning Season

Today was a late fall day dressed up as a summer day. The temperature was unseasonably warm. As I was conducting a poetry lesson, the children looked longingly outside. Finally we escaped and made the trek to a wooded nature trail, complete with two wooden bridges and a stream--something the city children found remarkable. Returning to the classroom, they ran up the big grassy hill, suddenly happy to be children on a rare moment of freedom on a day that felt like June. This, too, is poetry. They listed what they saw on their ride to the school--cows, pumpkins, farms, fields. This, too, is poetry. A soft-spoken girl read the poems in Spanish after I read them in English. Everyone was so quiet, we could hear the murmur of the wind outside. This, too, is poetry.

There are choices--how to find the hours it takes to be a writer, whether or not teaching is worth the incredible amount of time it takes, if any of this makes a difference. Watching the faces of students as they are lulled by words is what every poet wishes for. It is the balance--how much to give and how much to save for my own work. I believe this is important work--writing, teaching. I want to unnumb students and give them back words that express humanity, empathy, observation.