Day One
I am teacher, hear me roar,
See my reflection on the floor,
Green and white checker-board squares
Shine like the faces I imagined in my sleepless dreams
The night before.
Shirt pressed, empty desks,
Shoes shined, I'm on time
and my brown belt hit every loop.
The ringing of the bell
So familiar I can tell you just how long the ringing
Sings in my ear,
And all the nameless faces
Suddenly fill empty spaces,
With their too white shoes, new hairdos,
And FUBUs hanging loose.
They listen to me speak,
And not one of them's asleep;
Too early in the year to give a test;
And to each I reach my hand
The human touch is strange to them,
And we start the way that real people do.
The sun is still low in the sky as if
Trying to remind me that I am here at the beginning of a new day.
And that same sun offers light, bright and warm and all that's right,
And I want to hold their hands and fly away.
And I feel analogous to Icarus and I cannot resist the temptation to fly;
And I think it'd be okay to die the way he did that day
As long as the wing wax would fall and shine these floors.
Because this is the shiny side
Beneath the surface of which we hide
The dull and lifeless February days;
But I am teacher, hear me roar
See my reflection on the floor,
Shine like the faces I imagined in my sleepless dreams
The night before.
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