for every desk,
there was a doorway—
the threshold
now your teacher
Posts Tagged ‘teacher’
One at Graduation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged graduation, learning, school, teacher on May 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Through Her Discipline of Kindness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged discipline, friendship, kindness, Kyra Kopestonksky, learning, legacy, teacher on January 13, 2026| 12 Comments »
for Kyra
She brought her cello to the desert,
playing long, slow notes to cactus,
canyons, the night, knowing
it matters to bring music
wherever you go. She taught me
to sing in the face of fear,
even when the mountain lion
held her with his amber eyes.
She taught me to plant
a weed in a pot and wait
with great patience to see
what kind of flower might bloom.
To bring something chocolaty and sweet
to share with others wherever you go.
She taught me to share scars,
even when they make others wince.
To use more garlic,
to read poems to strangers,
to dance barefoot in the grass.
I did not want to learn how quickly
a life can go from vibrant to silent
to gone. Did not want to learn
how great a hole one human can leave
in so many lives. But I am grateful
for all that she teaches me still—
the beauty in the ache, how to hear
the missing laughter in the silence,
how to read the letters that
don’t come anymore, how love
is so much bigger than a poem,
how she is no less herself now
than she was when she was here,
how even in her absence
she still teaches me discipline.
Watching the Shy Young Poet Receive Her Applause
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged applause, student, teacher, wellspring on October 11, 2025| 6 Comments »
Like a river in flood stage,
her smile broke its banks
and changed the landscape
of the room, or perhaps
her smile was more like
a night-blooming cactus
that charges the dusk
with honest perfume.
That moment she stood there
and let the cheering in,
receiving our appreciation like rain,
oh, her smile then, may I never forget it,
so rare, this gift released,
the girl untamed.
One New Teacher
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, birdsong, teacher on December 13, 2024| 3 Comments »
while I sit and stew about the world,
the bird across the river
never ceases in its singing
The Teacher
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged garden, Joi Sharp, learning, student, teacher on February 21, 2024| 6 Comments »
for Joi Sharp
In the garden of wisdom,
she did not step in as head gardener.
Instead, she tended her own planting.
She showed me how to weed
the stories we tell ourselves,
how inner spaciousness
is the richest soil for growth.
She did not do the tilling for me.
Inquiry became my hoe.
She offered questions free
as rain water.
And when it was time to sow,
from her own rows she gathered seeds.
She did not do the planting.
She handed the seeds to me.
When I Told My Teacher About My Dream
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anxiety, dream, heart, Joi Sharp, love, perfectionism, student, teacher on May 24, 2022| 8 Comments »
The heart doesn’t have perfectionism.
—Joi Sharp
All night I dreamt
I was teaching a class
I’d never prepared for.
I’d never even seen
the textbook,
didn’t have a roster
for the students,
and couldn’t understand
how I’d arrived in this place
where I seemed destined
to let everyone down.
Even the chalk wouldn’t work
on the chalkboard.
All night I fought
an inner monster,
the one that says,
You are not enough.
All night it chased me
through the channels
of my fears, those
synaptic paths
well-traveled for years.
Oh world, let me be
the student.
Let me be one
who learns to live
through the heart,
who loves with confidence.
Let me study the ways
love meets the monster—
not with a fight
but with indifference.
The Teacher I Never Could Have Wished For
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, grief, stillness, teacher on February 6, 2022| 6 Comments »
I am still learning how to dance with grief—
it leads me through strange sequences,
intricate steps I have yet to master.
Just as I think I have learned
what comes next, I stumble, I step
on my own feet, I trip, I fall. I never
ask myself if this is a dance I want to learn.
It’s the dance I’ve been invited to dance.
If asked, I might have said no. But
today, grief holds me tightly, as if
to keep me from falling. Then loosens
its grasp as I let myself be led.
I am a student in trust. And we glide,
and I’m spun, and sometimes
we just stand, this stillness
its own kind of dance
I am slow to learn.
After Talking to My Teacher, I See the Invitation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged car, failure, invitation, Joi Sharp, letting go, poem, poetry, teacher on July 12, 2019| 2 Comments »
What wants to happen?
—Joi Sharp
Today it is the tow truck
that leads me back to myself.
For though I call the driver
and though I receive
a text that says he is coming
and though I have paid
my AAA bill on time, the tow
truck does not arrive.
Though I did everything right.
Though the same actions have worked before.
Still the world has not turned out
the way I expected, the way
I want it to. The car
is still stranded. The tow truck
is still not here. Oh failure,
how clearly it shows my attachment
to outcome. How clearly it
shows me the world is in charge.
I look for more doors to knock on,
try to plan more ways to control.
Meanwhile, I am the door.
Meanwhile, this chance
to let go.
In the Maze Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, shame, teacher on October 11, 2015| 2 Comments »
It’s not shame itself we want to lose
but the shame about our shame.
Shame itself is as innocent
as bliss or love or joy, only
we seldom want it to linger.
A woman walks through rows of corn
and knows her own shadow.
She does not lament its shape,
but uses it to guide her.
There is teacher in everything,
even the corn dried on the stalk. Even
the wanting to push shame away.
Even the arm that rises up
to embrace our own shadow,
impossible as it is.
Oh Thank You, Thank You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being led, gratitude, love, poem, satsang, student, teacher on July 21, 2012| 4 Comments »
for JS
The first thing I told you
was that I did not need a teacher,
and you laughed and told me
I was ripe. Why did I call?
I knew my world was broken
beyond my ability to fix it,
though I still believed there
was something to fix,
and you led me to this place
where all that is dejected, rejected,
crashed and crushed is just
as it is meant to be. And in every
broken moment, wonder. In every
defeated now, possibility. Lead me.
I love how we laugh through tears each time
I see how I’ve fooled myself. Again.
How you make it a gift to be a fool.
I love how you see through
all the veils I have hung and
allow them to drop, no tugging,
no cutting, just letting them
fall as they will until I shine
like a moon in your sun. When I asked
you to be my teacher, I did
not yet know it would be you.
Teacher
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged generosity, light, moon, poem, shine, sun, teacher on December 7, 2011| 1 Comment »
Imagine if the sun
said to the moon
“This sky’s not big enough
for the both of us.”
Instead, it gives
unceasingly light
so that they both
can shine.