teaching

They Smile

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The refugee question:

A firestorm all over social media. National media. International media. One that’s asking us to question our faith, that’s asking us to question our humanity. One that suddenly, after hundreds of years of terrorist violence from all corners of the globe, screams for an answer.

I have one.

First: open your eyes and call yourself a Christian. It starts first with forgiveness. With love. With hope. With faith. The same faith that these refugees have sought to protect for themselves. The same hope that they carried in rafts across the Mediterranean Sea at the risk of their tiny children being washed upon the shore, lifeless and in the arms of a forgiving God. The same love that ties together their families, that protects them from all that is evil in the world, the same love they see on those long walks across he Middle East and Europe, the love for the gift of another sunrise, the joy of another meal, the peace that comes from one set of open arms.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Corinthians 13:13

Second: Meet a refugee. A Muslim. Have you… Ever? Because I have a classroom full. Every day. They smile and call me by my full and formal name. They do their homework and ask to fix every error on every test they didn’t quite pass. They come before and after school for help. They smile. They thank me. They are polite and reserved, jubilant and chatty. When Denver Public Schools wouldn’t call a snow day and more than two thirds of my American-born students who live closer apathetically didn’t show up to show their consternation, my refugees took two or three busses from the suburb that had the most snow to be here. On time. Ready to learn. And every last one of them from a place where they’d never seen a snowflake before entering this country.

That’s how BRAVE they are. That’s how much they CARE. About everything. They will miss religious holidays, fast all day and finish projects, beg me for more work because they are so desperate to be as proficient in English as a native speaker…. Their parents will work in meat factories and drive taxis and pick up your garbage and do everything you never were willing to do because your American righteousness makes you too good for it…

And you haven’t even met one, have you? You’ve never even had a conversation, let alone spent an hour a day together for two or three years straight.

Third: Protect yourself. The hate that lives inside of you for people who are trying to flee to the promised land with nothing but the shirts on their backs is the SAME HATE the extreme terrorists carry inside themselves when they light the bombs that blow up everyone within their circle. Protect yourself. For you are the enemy: the enemy that lies within. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to evil. Evil leads to terrorism.

What are you afraid of? Hard work? Tenacity? Dedication? Faith? Hope?

Love?

Fourth: Open your mind. Your door. Your heart. Be the person who lights red, white, and blue across the sky to ask for a better world. The person who wants your children to be safe. Who wants a better tomorrow for everyone who ever set foot in or was born in this country… This world. Be the good you want to see in this world.

Be the smile. Because if you met one, you would know:

They smile.

Dreamland

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he comes after dark
 midst of dinner-laundry rush
 (the witching hour)
 
 gone are easy nights
 him cooking, cleaning, shopping
 short hours, slow work
 
 i sit amidst stacks
 of plans, ungraded papers
 stacks that won’t die down
 
 the girls do small chores
 to minimally help me
 cope with “overwhelmed”
 
 and i quit my class
 that would’ve taken me now
 sucked more from my life
 
 yet i’m still swimming
 in a haze of “unfinished”
 waiting for relief
 
 he takes over now
 broiling steak, washing plates
 gives me a moment
 
 i wait for one more
 one drive across the country
 to make this worth it
 
 
 
 

Skylight

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rearranging seats
 can be the best or worst choice
 for worn-out teachers
 
 but today it worked
 they successfully showed me
 how smart they can be
 
 these small daily gifts
 help brighten my autumn mood
 that’s dropped like the leaves
 
 i remember why:
 to see progress, light and gold
 falling from the sky
 
 

Gift wrapped

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Monday off: a gift
 wrapped in science fair success
 and wagon smiles
 
 

Possession

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and you won’t have this:
 spinning autumnal joy swing
 her trapped in between
 


and you’ll never know
 what it’s like to live for them
 (to live inside joy)
 


and you just can’t see
 how losing this would mean all:
 girls, home, husband… life


’cause it’s not a park
 with green lawns, blue skies, red leaves:
 it’s my livelihood
 


you’re a pic undone
 where the sidewalk ends, my friend:
 (leaves fall. i blossom.)

In Comparison

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midnight wake up call
 evaluation nightmares
 (scores that don’t suit me)
 
 early morning grades
 rush to school to hide from kids
 and try to catch up
 
 small knock at entry:
 “Teacher, may I please enter?”
 (a small scared boy waits)
 
 “Are you new today?”
 and his brother trails behind
 with soft pink gloves on
 
 “From Uganda, yes.”
 my papers sit in piles
 forgotten on desk
 
 i show them downstairs
 where free breakfast awaits them:
 eyes big and grateful
 
 “What brings you here, boys?”
 they exchange frightened glances.
 “For a better life.”
 
 ungraded papers,
 nightmares–they’re all meaningless
 in comparison
 
 at least they are here–
 where with beauty they’ll begin
 the life we all want
 
 

A Poem in the Making

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My small poet is lost in the world of text citations, a phrase I never heard until I was a junior in high school… Not as a fourth grader. And while my fifth grader keeps the world laughing with her dry humor and is at or above par in every subject, I can only imagine how Rio feels when she hears from the fourth teacher in her life, “She is so shy.”

It is the label of introversion. The stamp on her personality. And as she sits there in the hard plastic chair, her whole body shrinks underneath the shawl Heather made all those years back. She presses her knees tight against her chest and her eyes redden in her quiet attempt to hold back tears.

How did they end up with the same teachers, and why did we have to bring the kids with us? These are things that go through my mind as I see the 1’s and 0’s on her paper. As the English teacher lowers her voice to just above a whisper, almost mocking the small voice of my youngest; as the math teacher blatantly tells her she needs to speak up in science since there aren’t tests and that’s the way she can prove what she knows.

“It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be,” he assures me when we arrive home.

Not two minutes later, Rio asks me to cuddle with her in bed. I read her part of her book, then close it and wait. She has that pouty I-want-to-tell-you-something look. “Is it the conferences? Is it someone at school? Is it something you don’t understand? Is it your daddy?” (Because dark thoughts enter when I am so, so scared for her.) She negates all questions, and finally, in a barely-audible whisper, tells me, “I’m scared to go to sleep. I have scary dreams.”

It took her twenty minutes to divulge this to me, so I don’t press her for more. I talk about the weekend, about carving pumpkins, about me taking her trick-or-treating all by herself, just with me, as her older sisters have outgrown going with Mama and Daddy and have friend plans. Her red eyes soften when I ask her to think about these things, to dream about them.

But I will never know what’s really going on inside her mind. She will never tell me. It could be the disgruntled drive over to conferences when I discussed with her daddy an allowance-and-all-other-activity cutoff after so much backtalk about chores this evening. It could be the teacher’s tiny voice mocking her small soul. It could be Isabella’s snide remark when she asked her if she wanted to listen to her read her poems aloud last night, and the teary rush into the other room when it looked like she’d offered a voice to someone who didn’t want to hear it. (Isabella made up for it later when Mythili asked for a full reading and Izzy complimented–and was quite impressed by–every last one of her poems). And it could be… that she’s just having scary dreams.

But I will never know. Just like her teachers will only know her as the “shy girl.” Her sisters will always think of her as the “easygoing one.” And her mother? Everything about her–her dark hazel eyes, her small smile, her desperate need to wrap her entire body around mine when she wakes in the morning–will always be an endless mystery to me. One with clues I will pick up as she grows–from those sweet lines of poetry to late-night whispers of fear–as I try to find the meaning behind the poetry that is my small, shy, loving angel.

Works Cited

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a grumpy Monday
 drained by rudeness, overtime
 but brightened by girls
 
 science fair success
 anthology finally done
 we can breathe… for now
 
 go to sleep with grins
 knowing we tried our best try
 to get through this day
 
 

Friday Night Lights

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what angers me now
 is her quick accusation
 that we just don’t care
 
 bullied confessions
 took control of my first class
 (undocumented)
 
 yet, she’s tracking us–
 collecting district data
 to prove we’re worth it
 
 you cannot track kids
 who’ve been shoved into lockers
 with tablet data
 
 one day she’ll see this
 or continue on her path
 of domination
 
 either way, we win:
 My lesson’s lost, i tell them
 —but we needed this—
 
 i actually hear
 the harsh words they say to me
 i truly listen
 
 but she can’t see that
 it’s not in her statistics
 and therefore i fail
 
 what angers me most
 is how i love, love, love them
 and how she doesn’t

Neither Here Nor There

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rain-forced overtime
 and a club cancellation
 poured on my evening
 
 frazzled two incomes
 shuffle life like laundry loads:
 nothing’s ever clean
 
 quick pasta in pan
 (middle one waits for boil)
 i mad-dash the town
 
 make my appointment
 where my essay’s dissected
 by native speaker
 
 who can’t tell me why
 subjunctive is needed here
 yet, not here (nor there)
 
 disgruntled, i sit
 choose the last row, and listen–
 same two birds chirping
 
 pecking the rest out
 our Spanish words now swallowed
 by extroversion
 
 and i can’t do it
 i cannot sit in this class
 with my girls at home
 
 i can’t speak Spanish
 or use subjunctive bullshit
 —just say what it is—
 
 it’s like our lunch talk:
 Midwest culture won’t allow
 taking last cookie
 
 and if you offer,
 offer three times before, ‘Yes’
 (no cookie for me)
 
 so i leave the class
 i walk out, i give up, lose
 (win time with my girls
 
 who ask for reading
 aloud, in poems stories,
 mine and theirs and ours)
 
 and we read Spain poems
 remember Gaudí’s madness
 in place of our own
 
 and that’s my Thursday
 just like any other: lost,
 but not forgotten