My last year working in the school system before retiring, was a year of transition; I actually didn’t know what I was coming back to.  I had been out of the classroom for 16 years testing children for special education services and writing educational prescriptions.  But suddenly 1,100 of us in that capacity lost our positions when the budget was cut and the education system went under a business model.  It was a nightmare.  We had to return to the classroom.  I lost my office, my balance, my grip.  But it ended up being a delightful year as things began to fall into place. 

I left the craziness ot the first floor of the school and staked my claim on a large classroom on the third floor that looked out on tall oaks—unusual for a school in the middle of a city housing project.  I had groups of regular education first graders, who you can see in the photo album, who were at risk for reading delays.  I took them in small groups and used a program called “Voyager” to teach basics and enrich language.  Studying the letter T? I made a T party. You get the picture.

We had a lot of fun.

I was the one who learned more than any 6 year-old;  more than I ever knew I could.  Children have guts, spontaneity, impulsivity.  Sometimes that’s just what an adult needs.  Sometimes it’s just what an adult forgot they had.  Years ago.  When things were simple.

We just made it all too complicated.

On Leaves
©6/04

She returned in September, not knowing her place

until one day she reclaimed her space on a lofty

height and opened the door and saw

the leaves.

The trees visited at the windows bringing with them,

a green canopy.  The tall oaks sighed and bent with breezes,

and sometime later, as the green turned to the familiar

Fall golds and browns,

small children came to the sanctuary of the tree-room.

They held their own leaves of white paper

in their small books, blank

for her to fill.  Like hungry birds with their mouths agape

they asked to be fed.

They were told that if they forgot to write

their names on their paper leaves she would become

an owl and fly out the window,

into the trees and say, “Who? Who? Whose leaf is this?”

They laughed easily as the trees grew bare and they Voyaged

into letters and words and meanings and enigmas.

When the snow melted from the branches and

their heads were swollen with ideas,

she wormed in; small buds began to form on the trees.

The sun strengthened, bursting the buds into

more letters and concepts and pragmatics,

and cookies.

She told them about the cicadas that were

on their way, and how they lived in the tree’s branches.

One day, a huge dragonfly, bigger than any of them had ever seen

got trapped between the windowpanes.

She had no idea how it came to be, but as the faces

lined up at the window and cheered,

“You can do it, Dragonfly!”

to keep up its spirits,

she gingerly moved each window up, then down,

trying to protect it, in an attempt to free it but

to no avail; it was trapped and rapidly losing hope

of ever dodging a frog’s tongue again at some lake.

She turned her back, for a second and at that moment

one small child, given the gift of wonder,

pulled the lower window down with all her strength, quickly,

an lo, the creature was in flight,

like something that could only happen in a myth.

It flew away, or so she told them.

It might have dropped, or may have been taken by a breeze

to the ground, its huge golden wings useless like

holey paper leaves.

It left. They were not sure how they felt about it,

but they knew they were heroes.

She was taking leave as well;

As the greens and golds and browns and green-again leaves

reflected many seasons of her life,

she imagined herself released

from between the window panes;

she’d find a place where she could live

without movement

and just observe, quietly,

like a trapped dragonfly,

who might become depleted

if unable to exercise its gossamer wings

between the changing leaves.

photos/srk2004

Beautiful words, love the imagry with the dragonfly, hope he lived.

amazing, breathtaking poem……it moved me more than u can ever know. You shared your gift with those special children and they shared theirs with you. It created a magical place and time. You always amaze me my friend. Your firendship is such a gift to me. Thank you.