Hello, again.

The poem I’m sharing with you first appeared in English Journal, Volume 71, Number 2, February 1982.

That’s a long time ago.

The first stanza deals with my own joy of learning, finding out more and more about life and the world and the way things work. School for me as a student was the generator of knowledge where everything was new and wonderful.

The next stanza puts me later at the head of a classroom teaching fifth grade at Longfellow Elementary School in Pasadena. I was learning by doing, profited from experience, found ways to break through to real education, and later realized how it works at all levels, including college. It’s a poem of firsts, mine, then later, my students’. This is one of my early education poems and I’m carefully delighted that it works its way to end on a happy note, a kind of triumph, an exaltation.

First Thoughts

When I was young the quick
flash struck my brain burning
my eyes glowing gasping
at each first time
shreds of the inevitable
came together
obvious and new

The interim has settled in
and now I teach
bursting upon unwary students
again and again
their intellectual eden
their brief ten years
sustained by my endurance

Every day must rediscover itself
I shake the dust
I clear my throat
I slice away
my petrifying rubber face
I whirl up sparks and ashes
I add my fire to theirs