In a longstanding tradition, I was in the habit of writing a poem for every student I ever taught (only because I was told that acrostic poems could never be good poems, I set out to prove this teacher wrong). I looked at the opening stanza of 2007 (my last year in the classroom) and found these words:
Another Goodbye, Another Year
and he went to the front door,nestled at his blinds to look
out towards his painted porch
to see who rang the bell.
he saw no one. his
existence was only a maple tree seed
ricocheting on concrete from the wind.
ghosts. he thought. buried
on the horizon of his past --
on the shorelines of forgotten lakes and
days where he once wandered in
boyish
youth and adolescence. he knew he had to
evolve - continue his revolution of Hegel’s theory.
and then came the question. why was
no one there, at the door, wanting a greeting, or an
orientation of hospitality? hello, can i help you?
the world was empty, and
he felt it in his
eyes -- which he shut --
racing inward to find the answer.
you’ll have these moments, moonbeams. they come
every once in a childish smile
and, for a little while, you’ll begin to wonder. who
rang the bell? isn’t there supposed to be somebody there?
In retrospect, I read the words as a precursor to my ongoing search to find answers. That, of course, was before setting out for a doctorate and finding myself where I am right now...still opening the door and wondering, "What else is left out there?"
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