Faintly, faintly, I’m beginning to hear you.
“Teacher” is what I call you, and what you are to me.
“Teach me.” No matter where I may be
my identity will apparently always be
“The Student” and I, like an actor given a role,
play it.
Quietly, a pair of eyes gaze sponge-like
at your catalogue of lessons,
trying to erase the body —
— which is too loud, too needy,
too everything —
and try not to let you be drowned out
by my dreams, my ideas, my expectations.
What are you saying now?
Something about… my own powerlessness?
Not the throngs of swans and the songs of the dawn?
Instead, prolonged wrongs and the dawning sense
that I don’t belong here?
No! No, that can’t be the lesson.
I am too natural, too sky-edged.
I’m too much the daughter of moss,
too akin to the hanging lichen that drapes ghost-like off the trees
and too free, heart up against the sea.
In short, too me.
But this means nothing to you.
I have to go quiet again, stop filling in the blanks
with words and more words. Recalling my role,
I listen for a lesson.
(And this is the first lesson I learn:
“Be Quiet And Listen”)