EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

It is 1961. In the class sit (approximately)
40 students. 39 are white.
All of them have matriculated
(a word they recently learned)
at Millersville State Teachers College.
The name of the course is
Educational Psychology.

The professor has just been
asked a question that has
caused him anxiety because,
as is apparent to everyone,
he does not know the answer.
He is becoming increasingly agitated.
He is fully aware that the students
are enjoying his agitation
because they do not like him.
He is not a likable person.

He makes a desperate and phony
attempt at self-deprecating humor:
"Look at me. This question has
got me sweating like a nigg..."
He catches himself before pronouncing
the final syllable. Without looking
at the student, the professor says only
two words -- the name of the student
and "sorry." There is a long and
palpitating silence.

            Fifty years later
it is all that anyone in the room
will remember about the professor
and Educational Psychology.

LEAVING THE GARDEN

And over here at the back
of the house is the little woods
I told you about. Started small,
some ferns and hostas, then got
into the native plant thing:
Virginia bluebells, trillium,
cohosh (blue and black),
even stuck in a service tree,
a spice bush, then discovered
some that were here already:
toadshade, spring beauties, bloodroot.

Now that we're going to move,
I guess I feel a little bit like Adam.
‘Course the Good Book says
he sinned, got kicked out for it.
Still, it musta' hurt.
He'd been put in charge, worked
hard to keep things right, loved
when April came and everything
sprang back to life, greened the brown
ground like that sweet woodruff
over there beneath the oak. Oh well,
he must have thought, while it lasted
it was good. But I wonder if he wondered
about whoever came after . . . would
they care for it, would they love it
half as much as he had?
   

BENIGN DECEIVER

Billy Collins is my inspiration.
He makes it seem so simple:
put this word after that word
which will lead logically
and irrevocably to the next.

The result will be
poetic felicity.

Or in my case,
maybe not.

LIBERTY AND JUSTICE

He - high school senior
I - part-time substitute teacher, seminary student
The time - 1969
The situation - open class discussion: "After Graduation, What Then?"

I'd learned by now they preferred,
insisted upon, "black," not "Negro," not "colored."
When he stood up at the back,
everyone, even the girls in the front row,
stopped talking.

    Here's what. I graduate.
    My number comes up.
    They ship my ass over there,
    gimme a gun so I can kill people
    who never done nuthin' to me.
    They be tryin' to kill me too.
    Ain't right. Ain't right. And not
    a damn thing I can do about it.

He -     high school senior in Chicago
I -     Native of Lancaster County,
    home to Mennonites, Amish, Brethren, Quakers
    who believe and teach their children
    not to take up arms,
    to turn the other cheek,
    whose draft board will readily
    grant them 1-O status,
    "conscientious objector."

He -    has no such option
I -    have, have taken it, and ask:
    so tell me again -- exactly how is this
    liberty and justice for all?

NOT TO DECIDE IS TO DECIDE

"To make," he said and paused, his gaze
turned from the window to my face,

"a long story short, I'm broke."
His shoulders slumped. He spoke

softly, shifted in his chair.
"If you have something you could share . . .?"
He left the question hanging in the air.

All of it could be a lie I knew
well enough, but suppose it all was true?

He got up and walked away.
I saw the day was cool and gray.

A PUNISHMENT TO FIT THE CRIME

I don't remember which of us
started it. But suddenly we were
at it, bashing the slender trunk
of the sapling with softball bats,
reaching up and snapping off its
tender limbs. Finished at last,
exhausted, we fell to the ground
with gleeful grunts. A shadow
loomed over our ten-year-old bodies.
    Come inside. Now

Mrs. Loechner marched us like
prisoners of war into the one-
room school and made the three
of us stand attention at her desk.

    I've written on the board a poem
    you boys will memorize.

Her quiet voice filled the silent room.
Thirty pairs of ears caught every
word. She told us that John Keys,
the donor of the tree would one
day soon appear to hear apology
from these "miscreants"
whose "maliciousness" had trashed
his gift, that "these three" would
recite to him in chorus
the famous poet's verse.

More than half a century has passed.
I have not forgot a word of it.

    I think that I will never see
    a poem as lovely as a tree.

That's just for starters.
Here's the ending.

    Poems are made by fools like me
    But only God can make a tree.

I can recite the whole thing.
Trust me.

THE YOUNG PASTOR DOES HIS FIRST FUNERAL

At the cemetery the ground squished
under our feet. Huddled under umbrellas
the gathered stood shoulder to
shoulder in ranks like a mute choir.

I was new at burying.
I'd met the dead man only once
or twice, knew him only as
a face, a name. He was, I thought
so then, old. I said the words
that were expected, ended with "Amen."

Now what? I thought as silence
dripped. Slowly, breaking ranks,
the mourners turned and frog-stepped
around puddles to their cars.
The widow lingered. Watching her,
I supposed and later was to know, that
grief is mostly standing in the rain.