Isis

1/15/19

Yesterday there was a baby born

Somewhere in the hills of Destrehan

To a young man I watched turn into

A young man. A needle user, a junkie

A washed up and down with child

That maybe society had given up on

And truly I didn’t think he would make it

But this just goes to show what I know

To show that I don’t decide who and what and when

For this is left up to the power of the

Universe. I take some mornings and don’t trust

Don’t wake up for the alarm. An hour later

Rolling out of bed at six

Go to the sofa and hold the dog

As if this will take away the pain

The pain of waking, the pain of leaving the cocoon

So quiet and dark and warm

Such like maybe what it is when the body dies

Carried, yet there is terror in being without

Ego. Wrapped in the comforter against my back

I do not have the time or space to find myself

On this journey the body and mind need more rest

Those that I love are only a phone call away.

She is lying next to me in the morning

Her own little snoring, her own freedom to choose

If and when she will get up. Maybe

I am not a warrior and will not thrive

In the early morning examination

When there seems to be no inspiration

Only fear at what is coming, fear of the unknown

Fear of why my head shakes sometimes

Fear of the need to be right

Fear of staying awake too long

And the inability to jump up and shake the body

A slap to the face of consciousness

Neuroplasticity a non-issue this morning

If I cannot find something upon which to dote

To give love, to create the unknown

To type faster before the words get caught

In a box of surprises where ego exists

Back with the jacks and balls and the clowns

With the shift in mood and tone, with the Gathering

A spot to meet, run by a church, and last night I hear,

“Mr. George?” I turn and can’t think of her name

A student from last year, from Marrero.

We talk, and I ask her about the school, and I ask her

Does she want a hug, and she wraps her arms around

Me. I can’t remember her name, so when she goes to the van

I ask her friend, and the friend tells me Isis, and I remember

Her middle and last name, and I remember her trying

And somehow in the chaos that was last year,

I remember the good moments when the kids were engaged

And I remember the good moments when they were not

And I remember Janae who I finally got to read

Sitting in the closet by herself, how I caught her,

Reading a book about horses. And I remember Ava,

Bouncing all over the classroom, crawling like a soldier

I remember how the spirits and souls of those children seemed to be crushed

For everything was about keeping them in line

And screaming about what was wrong, and now, when this isn’t happening

When there is chatter in my own little classroom,

I feel guilt. I feel as though I have failed, but is this not

The nature of the ego when it knows it is not best

To grasp onto what other people might think and to grasp

Onto the need for control. Yet there is a fine line between my responsibility

And a need for control. There may be a lesson in all of this

As I wish to protect what it is that saved me

I come to want to control those perceived as a threat

And so those in the administrations of schools

Built on the premise of being better

And being shut down if scores aren’t made

Have the need to control. For fear made it this way

What seems necessity is really lack of faith

What seems whipping into shape is really

The fear of the voices that live within

And maybe all of this is only my own bullshit fear.

After meditation:

Still thought of holding on and not knowing

Where I should be in the future, where my group

Should be, where my students should be, where

My teachers should be, but a bit more awake

A coffee delivered to the bathtub by a woman

Does way too much for me, and I come home sometimes

And I sulk because what I have done is not enough

And the needed time and knowledge to do

What I need to do is not there. If able to stay

In the moment, the gifts will come, as I was talking

To the young man last night, that doing god’s work

Will wrap around whatever else is happening, inside

Of the hands and plans of the universe is an all-knowing gift

To be turned and tested and forced to go within

These are the criteria for growth, the criteria for

Sustainability. And in this time of deciding who to hire,

What might I do were I to consider myself? This is about

More than me. Not everyday will I rise to greet the morning

Not everyday will the determination take me there, and

At this moment, the realization hits: I have not prayed

As soon as my eyes open. This is the mind with which I am faced

This is why I need help upon awakening, need cleared the cobwebs of sleep

Need cleared the subconscious fears and needs

Need cleared a pathway to the divine that has been there

Ever since I was a child, lying in bed without a drum

Or a sound or anybody to listen

So I hit softballs as far as I could

And killed frogs without thought about their souls

I went wild on a bicycle, jumping over ramps

Handmade with plywood and football helmets

And those days, when I stood by the mailbox

Waiting for the mail lady to give us that day’s candy

I wonder whether I worried about the future, the way I did

While lying in bed and contemplating the nature of death

Still this exists. Still this fear of what if? In the temperature of

Children that say, “I don’t like you, Mr. George,”

And you sometimes forget that these teenagers are still children

You forget that you are in this world to play the role

God assigns. You forget that when you sit and consider

When you try to explain life to others, when you stop the thoughts

Life is perfect. All is happening for a reason, as all has happened

For a reason. What you do is about tuning in and finding what is next

And what is next today is to stand in front of a class, unprepared

Unsure, unknowing and yet with love and questions, so that

Someday in the future, when you see one of these children,

They, like Isis, might give you a hug, and who knows

Some might even come to the realizations that you have, that

There are wrongs you need to right, teachers whose lives

You did not respect, teachers who you purposefully pushed

To see them explode. You will not explode, not outwardly,

But sometimes your insides break down and the weight of stress

Is matter, whereas the weight of god and now is energy

And this will change the body, will change the composition

Will affect your health and return you to the position

With which you once knew, floating, safe, carried in the womb

And maybe this is why Marcel Proust wrote in that cork lined room

He knew back then in France what you know now, that we

All of us want to be held, to be loved, to be carried

From here to there without a fight, yet in this world

We will enough blind fighters who want you to cut out your own eyes

And there will be arm less warriors standing ready to do battle

Ready to take your own, yet with the growth of new skin

Comes a new day and a new witness and a new time to

Use the same words in different sentences. All is well.

Is this not the point of this writing, to take you to that place,

To change the way the synapses fire in the brain, to show others

That they can do the same by relying on a force, a power

The moment, the now, what some may call god, and what is

The divine that resides within and throughout everything

That is everything at its source