New Classroom Poem

New Classroom

“New” is a relative term, of course.

For it’s walls all but whisper the stories of thousands of children.

Surrounding me, they watch with wise silence as I bustle about,

Sticking them with pins, and staples and covering them with brilliant shades of paper.

They practically sigh as I hang my welcome sign.

But it is my new classroom and I love it so.

It could be that it is simply that it belongs to me that makes it so irresistibly delightful,

But, no.  It is something else…

Some ancient glow that is hidden deep within the heart of this classroom.

A love for children so deep that only a building built for that purpose can know.

And it seems to accept me.

Welcomes me into this new world,

And takes me under it’s wing like a mentor. 

That woody pungent smell is beginning to smell like home.

At first sight I saw the potential in this dusty, forsaken, aged room.

Like a premonition I saw it sparkling clean, bustling with children,

Purposeful and happy once again.

Now, as the day draws nearer I draw comfort from this space,

This home I have built for people I don’t yet know.

I can feel my new classroom glowing with pride and,

like me, waiting with anxious pleasure.

~Ronee Treadwell 

My Teacher Education Graduation Poem

I wrote the following poem from the fire within me that was stoked by my experiences as a graduate student.  It had been a long journey, and we were at the edge of a new beginning.  Some of will get jobs and start that journey right away, and others will take a longer path.  Some will resist, and others will succumb.  It is all a part of the journey.  The most important thing is that we keep “holding at the forefront the lives of the individuals we shape.”

Standing on the edge of a precipice

With eyes covered,

Not knowing how long,

If ever,

This long journey will take to reach rectification,

We trudge forward, ready for the dive,

With our hope and knowledge to guide us.

Holding at the forefront the lives of the individuals we shape.

We prepare our hopes and our minds for the day,

That we can step unfettered into our future.

But the future is clouded with dissent,

And because we cling to our values,

There is a battle to be fought,

We are unprepared, though,

For we are not soldiers,

But scholars, and poets,

Artists, and authors…

But stand we here in the garb of war,

To fight the good battle,

For those who cannot,

Against those who know not,

Armed merely with wit and the tools of our trade.

But we will find knowledge is our advantage,

Because,

Like a bird bound,

We have succumbed to our fetters,

For now,

But the hope of liberation is nigh.

We stand on a precipice,

And though we do not know what comes next,

We have our wits, our values, and our hope,

And nothing can stand in our way.

Mrs. T

Literature Poem

Their tales are full of sorcerers and ogres
Because their lives are: the capricious infinite
That, like parents, no one has yet escaped
Except by luck or magic . . .
[W]olves, mice, bears, children, gods, and men
In slow perambulation up and down the shelves
Of the universe are seeking . . . who knows except themselves?
What some escape to, some escape: if we find Swann’s Way better than our own, and
trudge on at the back Of the north wind to – to –
somewhere east Of the sun, west of the moon, it
is because we live
By trading another’s sorrow for our own; another’s
Impossibilities, still unbelieved in, for our own . . .

 Randall Jarrell, The Complete Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1981).