Seeing the Faces

 

Sometimes when I close my eyes to look for
the face of Jesus, faces of my former students
appear to me. This is no longer surprising, it's
both a surreal trick of the eye and a deeper truth.
I see them living gifted or harmed by how teachers
stewarded our time and place, by our capacity for
compassion. Each student gifted us, too. Even when
I felt frustrated, I was not harmed, but gifted. I'm
grateful for my meetings with students everywhere.
Children of God, they grow into a world with greater
taking and greater danger, and, therefore, need for greater
giving, greater teaching, and greater learning. I can't
protect them with prayers or with hugs real or imagined—
only with openness to hear and love them. And with
greater determination to fight for safety in any society
they enter—a gift for them and for their children, too.

As for their faces—now that I am mostly alone,
I welcome images that resurrect the best days
of my life and clarify their living nature.

Day 30, the last day of the One-a-day Poetry Month challenge for dear, rainy, creative, tired April.

My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright.

© 2023 Susan L. Chast