A Teacher's Take on Hamlet's Sililoquy

What to think, or how to think – that is the question
Whether it is better for the mind to suffer
The tests and assessments of legislative order
Or to take arms against a sea of benchmarks
And by opposing end them. To read, to think -
No more – and by thinking to say we know
The objective, and the thousand uncontrolled shocks
A student is heir to. It is an institution
Devoutly based on money. To read, to think
To think –perchance to create: ay, there’s the taxonomy
For in that thought of change what laws may come
Must give us pause. There’s the content standard
That makes certainty of life-long learning
For who would bear the walk-thrus and pacings
The administrator’s tools, the proud teacher’s evaluations
The pain of testing, the score’s delay,
The proficiency of skill, and the diploma
That student merit of the repeated tasks
When he or she might their average make
With a real effort? Who would bundles bear
To text and tweet under a wired life
But that the dread of detention after school
The undiscovered potential, from whose bourn
No graduate returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those routines
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the system bright of institution
Is burdened over with the stale caste of tradition
And slogans of great pitch and mention
With this regard their citizens turn away
And lose the name of education – Soft you now,
Oh fair Society! – Nymphs, in thy profits
Be all our grades remembered.

Mountain Lion track

Looking at Edward Hopper’s People in the Sun

The light falls on empty faces,
empty spaces, sunbathers of a landscape
of faraway ridges and a golden veldt.

In chairs as stiff and formal
as a suit and tie, shoes and socks,
scarf and hat, even with a pillow
one of them doesn’t look relaxed.

The man in the back, who reads a book,
what exactly is his story?

And is that porch they sit on shadowed
in an answer to what’s behind those ridges
or those windows?

(And what of the female face we cannot see?)

What line divides us?
What distance between who we are
and how we look?

The color blue and all the light
cannot disguise their faces, covered up
in what they do not want
to tell us or to see.

19076

Always I would peek out the window
to see if my friends were in the street,
warm evenings playing hide and seek,
football and baseball before Nintendo.

The past coming back to memory
in short bursts of laughter, front lawns,
and neighbors’ homes. Mail delivery
through a slot in the front door. Times

when it rained and I couldn’t go out,
Monopoly games lasting all night,
the photographs in black and white.
My upstairs bedroom as I would shout

to my friends about when I’d be
ready, travel pennants on the wall,
Big Sur, Santa Cruz, and Yosemite.
I used to think the place was so small.

Backyard Haiku

Grape vine branches hang
over our wood fence, neighbors
who I've never met

Under dark wet dirt
thick tentacled roots have crawled
across the backyard

Working in the yard
in the shade of Redwood trees
my dirty hands hurt

Goldfish in the pond
swim to the surface for food,
mossy green water

Terra Cotta tile
patio next to the pond
a dwarf lemon tree

Nearly ripe lemons
decorate leafy branches,
a cool afternoon

Yard work and a thought
dug up from the past, muddy
clump of tangled roots

Big green yard waste bin
full of vines pulled off the fence
top not quite pushed down

Soft earth underfoot
bright sun overhead, today
work came easily