I have a stack of student papers
I carry with me like an amulet, like a lifeline.
Pages whisper to me in the dark:
Attend to me.  Listen.  See me.
Read my stories.

I am surprised you cannot see them,
circling like birds around my head,
fluttering like butterflies or leaves
around me when I walk,
these pages waiting for me
to take them in my hands,
hands that look like my mother’s,
to listen for the lives behind the words.

Gratitude List:
1. This satisfying teaching moment: After working through a logic and reasoning exercise with a class that really struggles to focus, one young man exclaimed, “Miss!  This really got me thinking!”
2. This satisfying teaching moment: After my English 9 class read Ray Bradbury’s “The Sound of Thunder” this week, one boy asked with shining eyes, “Can you suggest some books that might be sort of like this story?”
3. Golden.  It just gets more and more golden.  I drove up Ducktown this evening in the slanting afternoon sun, under the canopy of shimmering orange and golden leaves, and down Schmuck into the hollow, and I felt as though I had found my way into Brigadoon.
4. These good fifteen years of the CSA.  It is hard to see it end, though there’s a lot of relief, too, and hope that the next phase of our lives will also bring us joy and community.  We have been incredibly blessed by the presence of so many good folks in our lives during this phase, and I am really going to miss the camraderie, the jokes, the feasting, the powerful conversations, the sense of connection to these good people, and the connection of the people to the land.  This work has shaped and formed us, and I am grateful for it.
5. What the future holds.

May we walk in Beauty!  May you be Golden.