Life Gives Lessons

A few poems I wrote this summer.

6/12/11

TROUBLE

Show me a quick temper

I’ll show you a fool.

Ain’t no lesson you’ve ever learned in school.

Ain’t no lesson you’ve never learned in school.

Life comes from art,

And art bleeds life.

Help comes from hunger and hunger causes strife.

6/12/11

SHOWER

In the rain of the shower all the world is possible.

Molehills squashed mountains climbable.

Ideas pour from the spout and wash through me clean and doable with extra enthusiasm.

All the can do’s flush my tiredness and my negativity rush down the drain,

Making me whole and alive again.

Nozzle turned off, dreams of the day still bright,

Door opens, flashed with reality, everything moves back to just might.

I might clean the house, but what’s the use? I might write today, but why?

The might’s stick around like glue before it hardens, sticky and binding.

Yet with force I pull my foot out of the glop and pull my soul back into the shower.

8/23/11

BRILLANCE ON WINGS

Goodbye to the apples and oranges and me,

Goodbye to the things that laugh and things that sing.

Goodbye to the flower that just once was,

Goodbye to you and for me because,

            Truth lies within and leaves room to sleep,

            Not just within but deep.

            Deep to and through my heart,

            Diving deep, turning corners, awaiting something new to start.

While it waits it burrows in for the cold.

Twisting and turning up tales to be told.

Stories of past and of present times,

But none of the future, they have yet to unwind.

The truth in not merely one color, nor one tiny wing.

Once opened up, a butterfly is what I’ll make of the whole darn thing.

The truth will then soar with brilliance on wings,

Set free from the world and all of its bindings.

Purpose

Day 0.2

Nine months and counting

Grade: Kindergarten

            I will homeschool my son, Elijah. We will be in kindergarten together, I as the teacher, dutiful and strong, and he as the student, willful and boundless. I have come to this juncture in my life being pushed. I was pushed out of home ownership when our finances went belly-up.  Little income meant little spending. Among a list of extras in life to go, the XM satellite radio, cable at times, and frequent jaunts to Starbucks, I had to say goodbye to my son’s private Christian preschool. The mere two days a week he attended was going to be financial suicide in the fall if we did not cut the bill this spring.

            I hated to see school on the chopping block, yet I knew my family needed the slash. I applied for Head Start and state run preschool to be turned away! We made too much money per month. And then I was stuck but only for a fleeting moment. My husband, Nathaniel, had been a constant buzz in my ear for four years to homeschool. I always shooed the buzz away and tucked a minuscule amount of the idea under my belt, I suppose to ponder over at some far off later date yet to be pinpointed.

            Well up-cap the Sharpie and pinpoint that date on the calendar because this summer was when the time came to talk about it more seriously. I have my B.A. in Liberal Studies, I am ready to teach elementary school and I already teach in the adult school system, but stay at home and teach my four year old? I held fast to my argument that Eli would not listen to me as his teacher, I barely pass muster with him listening to me as his mom. I realized I refused to allow a whole year go by without any formal education for him, especially since he had already been at school, I did not want him to be behind educationally or socially. However, I continued to hold onto my fears and as scared as I was to jump into homeschool I felt the desire start to trickle in. I felt myself step aside and allowed God to take over.

            Making the decision to listen to God and my husband opened my eyes to my reality, I was always going to homeschool I just didn’t know it yet. My purpose this year is to learn who I am in Christ, because He is who I follow. I will teach my son and learn to give my worry, my strife, and my brick walls to God.

I Mourn the Traditional and My Senses Wake

Day 0.1

Still nine months to go

Grade: Kindergarten

            Open classroom door, wind blows by. Tacked memos and posters flutter against dingy white walls. Flap, flap, flapping in the breeze. The wind picks up early fallen leaves. Asphalt, concrete and crunching leaves resonate through my reminiscing ears.

            Early September smells like brown bag lunches and salty, dusty kids gleefully playing at recess. The air conditioner switches on with a low grade click, the teacher breathes deeply, sweaty children fan themselves.

Laminated posters line the walls promising perfectly sharp edges that will poke little fingers when explored. Coveted posters covered in thick plastic splash inspiration along the classroom walls.

             Plastic pencil boxes creak open exposing joyfully colored writing implements promising pages of stories and perfectly written cursive. Pencil lead tap, tap, tapping on laminate desk tops.

            Art work, prized by the teacher and student, hung, to be applauded by parents, from fishing line or unfolded paper clips from ceiling tiles.

            The mystery stain on the carpet half hidden by a bookshelf, almost always brown or faded gray, cleaned but only dulled, attracting dirt illuminating itself among the rest of the carpet the way patches of silver hair reflect light on a brown head of hair. Hidden, forgotten, accepted, and loved.

           

Preschool Nightmare

Day 0

Nine months to go

Grade: Kindergarten

            The day I floated the now infamous “whatever” past my lips directed at my then boss was the day I became a Libertarian, thumbing my nose at The Man, I just didn’t know it yet.

            More than five years ago I sat in yet another meeting to discuss my obvious dislike for singing with the preschool class I was teaching. I sat and listened to Ms. C run down a multi-layered list of viable reasons for me to sing with these sweet three year old children. I listened but I refused to absorb. I knew the information she was trying to impart me, I just didn’t care to be told how to teach my students. I would sing when I was darn well and ready and today I was not all that darn well and ready.

            “O.K. Whatever!” spilled out of my haughty, know-it-all mouth severing any tie to authority Ms. C believed she held over me. Seeing fury, truly fury, build in her eyes, I began to back peddle. “I’m sorry. I mean…Whatever!” Out it came again.

            She sprung from her seat pushing herself up and out of a tiny plastic chair and stormed out of the classroom. Before she, principal of a religious school, slammed the door she forever burned me with,

            “Don’t tell ME whatever! YOU…..ARE…..FIRED!” Bang! The door slam was heard by the remaining campus teachers and the teacher aids. I hung my head and collected my things and walked to my car shamed.

            I did, however, learn a couple of things that day:

                        1. Never tick off The Man, he will screw you.

                        2. I should have sung with those kids. Not to please her but to stop being afraid of myself.