My favorite people tend to be teachers. For whatever reason, they make me comfortable. I still internally identify as a teacher, though by the time I met one of my favorite teachers, Mary Lee Hahn, in person in 2010, I hadn’t been teaching at all, not even subbing, for three years. With her calm, comfortable personality, and innate Teacher-ness, Mary Lee became an instant member of my family – especially as she shares a name with one of my most popular book characters.
Especially over the past couple of years, I’ve enjoyed Mary Lee’s teaching through eavesdropping via what she’s shared on her blog or on her Twitter feed. Both the writing assignments she’s done with her students and the reading she’s done on bias and anti-racism and how they can warp a child’s education showed Mary Lee as a truly wise, generous and effective educator, working on honing her own awareness of what her students needed so that they could, in turn, go out and be what the world needs. I can’t go back in time to be one of her students or one of her colleagues, but I’m proud to be one of her friends. Cousin Mary Lee, congratulations on your retirement.
wave and water, fish and sea
cycles all of destiny
as the cloud becomes sea spray
each has their own part to play.
Little streamlets bubbling on
soon become the Amazon
Every stream then finds the sea
learns to flow forth naturally.
River’s tumble is well-known
fisherwoman turns for home
after all the tumbling roar
such relief to turn for shore
wide, the sea goes roiling free
plunging outward now, carefree
clouds emerge from shifting wave
mist the water must now brave –
Fisherwoman home has brought
memories of each fish, well caught
then released to live their days
flashing through the waterways
wave and water, fish and sea
cycles all of destiny
fish and fisher played their part
teaching, learning, works of heart.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Christine at Wondering & Wandering. Lots more poetry and raised glasses to Mary Lee there!