Just Before the Epilogue

I told them to be brave. To be honest.
To be strong -- always and forever.
Your students must have thought me mad:
"Who is this man with wild hair, making us

read poems we have heard in commercials
for jeans?" And we had a laugh, you and I,
'cos we knew the score. We had both been
there before. I was giving advice, writing

notes to a fifth-grade self, the one you knew
so well. The boy who you sat with by
the pool when the August heat was vicious,
teaching him fractions -- or was it long

division? Time has been mostly kind to us.
We did and do what we want, what we
were born for. I go to bed when the sun
rises and I wake when it sets. I dream

of troubadours and drinking wine with
Frank O'Hara. I want to write the next
Great American Novel. This is what I do,
exist outside of the expected. And you?

You are the reason for people like me.
Teaching is not about book reports
and field trips and state capitals. The
charge is much greater. You take baby

fat ten year olds who live in their worlds
of oversized t-shirts and baseball caps
and you push them. You test them. "B's
are grand, but what makes you?" You taught

me, yes -- but you guided me towards here.
I met you at the right moment, a perfect
storm of pre-teen over-dramatics and awkward
charm. And you saw that, and got to the core.

Made me brave. And honest. And strong.
Always and forever. The words have stayed
with me, arranging themselves into line
breaks to sound beautiful. To have meaning,

like a thank you.