The Art Teacher

for the one whose initials mean morning

"teaching art isn't about teaching art. it's just about letting people be - letting them be them, showing them it's ok. i don't know...that's why i like it. everyone is so scared...i like to try to show them they don't have to be afraid."

~~~~~~~

writ by one woman,
an art teacher
whose young life story
is a chain refrain,

put it on me,
put it down right on me

her see
nowadays
is her sea
of nowadays nothing but troubles,
ocean thirteen fathoms deep

what hasn't gone wrong,
just wasn't worth
being put on the list

we all need someone to lean on,
so here I am,
leaning on her,

surprise!

her prize,
a strength so profound
when depths plummeted,
she curses the dark deservedly
then writes me
another poem and
her sinking ship
never goes under,
despite life's repeated
offensive attempts
to play her,
down after down

you see she gets it,
not quite rightly,
she
is an artwork,
momentarily
needy for a frame suitable,
and I,

well,
am in a museum gallery
admiring her,
for she is great
art,
and from great
trouble,
her art grows greater,
her persona painting
simpler and straighter

so here I am thinking
student minoring in art,
think she is an art,
a teacher majoring
in teaching how to be

so here I am laughing,
my pandora gremlin
does it again,
playing games,
first "Lean On Me"

and then
"Let It Be"

so let her be,
so she can teach
the art of letting us
be

beautiful twisted words of wonder have eaten through my soul

Sometimes*, it feels like
If you'd cut yourself
I'd bleed