Found in mail today: a gift from the sea fairy (oh oh oh! thank you, Poe!)
Found in class today: Kate's poem "2 of Swords" brings tears to eyes (not just mine) and promotes sincerity in the classroom:
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2 of Swords
2 of Swords
~ Kate Greenstreet
There's always that moment
with people, right?
You look back...
you can't believe
how they just
don't love you.
And how,
in the minute before that,
you didn't know.
There was a place, near water.
The people had come
from somewhere else, and settled.
How we came to exist.
How we came to be here, everywhere
at once.
How could I say nothing?
Well, it's a long walk ahead.
For a long time,
I didn't know.
And it's all just another
story about how life could be.
A psychic told me once I had the mind of a nun.
As if there would be only one kind, for nuns.
The offices of seers we consulted in the South
sometimes had chickens. The vestibules
were swimming with the poor--
bobbing, drowning, in our lake
of dreams and wishes.
Tell me everything
you want to do while there's still time.
Keep in touch.
Think about the leaves
and the birds
in branches.
Think about the words
Big Picture.
The Big Picture.
For a long time,
I didn't know what to say.
And of course I didn't want to say it.
When everything depends--has always
depended on acting like nothing is wrong.
Fruit trees blooming in the blood drenched ground,
a ringing phone--
it's what we're in the middle of.
If we realized the extent to which no one understands
what anybody else really means
by anything they say, well,
you say we'd all go crazy.
But aren't we crazy already?
With trying and pretending
and being mad about it--I mean angry.
There was a place, near water.
How we all came to be,
everywhere
at once.
My prayer is changing.
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Found in class today: when you offer a student permission to break free, they take it
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Found in class today: when you offer a student permission to break free, they take it
