PICKING UP THE PIECES

There is a part of me in E4

Where I still linger

Long after the bell has rung.

And I pause to collect my senses-

Stretched like the string of a bow,

With the demands of thirty hungry voices.



There is a part of me still on that verdant hill

Where I laid my classroom burdens at the cross one afternoon,

And wondered if God had forsaken me in my darkest hours.



There is a part of me out in the yard,

Listening to the rant of children,

Who seek the comfort of friends,

As they vent their anger against

The vortex of their own emotions.



But it is also that time now when I must hurry

To fill out exit forms; account for

intellectual property; return all resources,

And complete a million mundane tasks before I go.



But when the birds have flown from the nest,

I will walk back to pick up those many pieces I have left behind.

And in the gaps that are left, I will put in names of people

And pictures of loving memories spent with you,

So that when I walk out of St Dominic, I will be whole once again.

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*(St Dominic-a school where I worked)

*E4- my classroom