Work Was

by Anna Bernard

Work was bad smelling whiteboard markers,
Rote repetitive Open Court lessons,
A hundred repeats of 2 digits times 2 digits,
Show and tell with trilobite fossils,
Holding off going to the bathroom,
Being hungry but too bad (same as the children),
Not wanting to say one more word,
Preferring to sing the Camouflage song
or the one about the homeless little bird.
Work was enjoying writing skills so textured and soulful
from those so young that I wanted to cry,
Suffering over writing so meager,
badly spelled, and reluctant
that I did cry.
Work was sharing my intense delight
in learning something new,
But so much of it became
Sharing how to take a test
how to take a test
how to take a test
Get it right (dammit) this counts--
Perhaps now this is all that counts.
Ask the principal.
Ask the president.
How many of you are already hopelessly
left behind?
Listen! Listen! Listen!
Don't run,
Don't fall,
Don't trip and land on my left side.
If you must, bump my right side
which has no consequences.
Where did the joyous times go?
And all your precious days of childhood?
And my well being?
I had a vision once of the teachers
from 90 years ago walking down the Main Hall
in their long sleeved white blouses,
long gray skirts softly swaying.
Now I don't see them or me.
Me, younger and cheerful,
or me, wobbling with tremors
in that last year.
My likeness from a 1996 school portrait
is in one of several murals in the long hallway.
I am in the California Missions painting
wearing a full length green dress,
a soft red shawl.
I stand beside a friendly cow,a duck,a lamb.
I stand beside other faculty members
painted in their mission finery
or humble white if they were
cast in the role of the Fernandeño Tataviam.
That is all that is left
to be my mark - my Gilroy was here -
now that teaching the young is there
and I am over here
some place else.