The Line

Yep– so I could still sing this song for just about every professional and personal challenge of 07-08: John Doe of X fame, backed up by the beautiful Kathleen Edwards, to be played very, very loud.

03-john_doe-the_golden_state

And the appropriate closing poem, below.

Have a wonderful summer, everyone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Place With Promise

Sometimes my affection for this place wavers.
I am poised between a vague ambition
and loyalty to what I’ve always loved,
kedged along inside my slow boat
by warp and anchor drag. But if I imagine

seeing this for the last time…
then I think I could not bear to go,
would grab any stump or tree limb
and hold on for dear life…

Why can’t we hold this landscape in our arms?
The nettle-tangled orchards given up on,
the broken fence posts with their tags
of wire, burdock taking over uncut fields,
the rusted tipples and the mills.
Sometimes I think it’s possible
to wash the slag dust from the leaves
of sycamores and make them green, the way
as a child, after lesson and punishment,
I used to begin my life again.
I’d say a little “start” to myself
like the referees at races, then
on the same old scratchy car seat,
with the same parents on the same road,
I could live beyond damage and reproach,
in a place with such promise,
like any of the small farms among the wooded hills,
like any of the small towns starting up along the rivers.

~ Maggie Anderson

On NPR this morning: Guy Raz reports on how one adjective can define our future military commitment to Iraq. Not Congress. Not we, the people. An adjective.

“The U.S. Congress has passed three laws that prohibit any U.S. funding for permanent U.S. military installations in Iraq. But according to Kurt Campbell — a top Pentagon official during the 1990s and now the head of the Center for a New American Security — there are also ways around that. “While no one will say anything about permanent bases, [there are] lots of ways to create the potential for bases to be in Iraq for decades to come,” he says. White House and Pentagon lawyers may opt to use adjectives like “enduring” or “continuing” instead of the word “permanent” when they announce the final agreement. And to Campbell, the agreement is an attempt, “in the last days of the Bush administration, to hand a new administration a done deal.”

Listen to the whole thing here.

When the last living thing
Has died on account of us,
How poetical it would be
If Earth could say,
In a voice floating up
Perhaps
From the floor
Of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.
People did not like it here.”

And this, I realize,  is a very simple way to say what it’s really about in teaching, for me. I hope to help my kids like it here.

OK, need to close this night on a positive note. One, a new subject for the blogroll: if you’re getting sick of education, check out Kate Wing. Kate’s a Senior Analyst at the National Resources Defense Council, a brilliant and very funny scientist and writer, and I am honored to call her one of my best buds. Her post on Thanksgiving says it all.

And then this, which I think should be read at every wedding in the world: “Litany,” by former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. (I’ll post his poem on fire-bearing mice soon.)

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine…
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow–the wine.