Poem by John Kelly
A teacher's thoughts as the new year calls
(I must go down to the seas again . . . John Masefield)
As the long and languid summer holidays -
every teacher’s annual retreat - near their end,
prosaic hauntings of bells, timetables, yard duties,
in-service sessions, fire-drills, staff meetings,
curriculum revisions, text selections, lesson plans,
assessment tasks, marking, reports, exams,
parent-teacher interviews,
and co-curricular commitments loom larger
than large to interrupt my reading
of the afternoon tide’s flow as it goes about
its unrelieved, efficient business to the beach. . .
Days shorten, time contracts, as school agendas
rise in gathering waves, break, surge, and cram
into the mind, intruding on the leisure
of swims, beach strolls, and jetty fishing,
and my marvelling at the blithe ease
of the local seabirds at their play
with wind drifts in a cloudless azure sky -
all too soon, it will be, for another year,
‘Good-bye’ to sprezzatura leisure. . .
Still, mercifully, I know I’m more than ready
when my thoughts turn to the real heart
of the new school year’s matter:
fresh students and adventures we’ll be setting out on
as we encounter stories old and new,
and engage with those who’ve written out
their hearts and minds to help us plumb
the treasure-laden depths of all
our graced, life-teeming world invites,
and what we humans are, and can become. . .
John Kelly is an Adelaide teacher whose third collection of poems A Schoolbag Full was released in 2021.