Shining Horns

Nature Writing at Raven Chronicles Online

Steve Larson

Benediction for Teacher Workshop Day 

Thousands of us gather in August

To start a new year with children.

By now I know I have nothing to teach.

Nothing but this slow watching,

Hand dragged carefully as I walk

Past hay bales stacked for the season.

Through tinted glass, a veneered podium,

Typed papers lying on it, instructions for the dying

Delivered by the dead.

Drifts of muffins on white tables

Napkins folded into silk snowplows.

My own benediction worming up for air.

A cluster of designer gourds on the bales.

A wasp rising slow in the sun.

Then the garter snake strapped under graying twine.

Body dried coiled, head pulled back

Mouth stretched wide against the coming machine.

	Dear teacher, (the hardened bones cry out)

	Deliver us not into compliance

	But praise our slipping over sun-hot stones

	Squeezing the last bit of frog juice

	From long cool bellies!

	Mark us not with a gullible eye

	Or a back bent blind under rules!

	Find us not bowed like good little children

	When the tractor comes looming.

	But let us live facing skyward

	Tasting the wind for hawk.

	For ever and ever,

	Amen