Focus on the Helpers

Focus On The Helpers

I started with that, repeated that, returned to that.
Helpers, there are so many heroes and helpers,
Our world is full of hope in our helpers.
You saw them running towards what others fled, holding on, taking charge, doing what they do-facing life and in that living- danger,

Young children wrote in journals today in my classroom- as we always do-the subject this time evoked yesterdays echoes- they were sounding my name
Coming in full of ready energy-raring to write
 "this is someone that helped me once"
In paragraphs that floated around in a field full of questions, fears, honest inquiry
on the morning after America was blasted by a pressure cooker.

These are the children that I'll always remember
the ones writing me to tell me something
Good, on the start of a really long one
They sat with me through other days
Not so long ago they didn't hear me talk about anything, not a word of Sandy Hook,
As directed from above
It was not something we were prepared to respond to really,
They just waited until I finally said,
"Whatever we face, we will face together-ok?"

"Today," one child wrote, "My teacher helped me because she treats me just
Like her family," adding, "You gave up every Friday to stay late and help me
Build my math, just like my father would,"
My face was red with inadequacy-
But I couldn't mumble anything because my eyes were wet
As I looked at a few other moving, moving tributes
One child stated that if he could have a time machine he'd use it to remove all our mistakes-
Here I was thinking of the helpers, channeling their help
And they called me one.


Last night I went to the Lobero Theater
To listen to a son talk in the voice of his Dad, singing of the City of New Orleans
Echoing Blue Ridge Mountains to Redwoods not so far
From where I sit. A woman there had the arms of my mother in law
Her form, the lights dimmed, music heals and comforts
Wraps us in a lap, a place, a time
I thought, what would Woody write of this day
If he was looking in the paper for things that ain't right.

I think he'd write of the walking,
the miles of running done this day
As those that watched then gave their blood, sweat, limbs to a hell made on this earth
By monster kids, lost, radicalized to lose any compassion-
From that stage this son sang and spoke of how we do not know
How our peace sung into the darkness
Reaches around and wraps its arms
To somehow whisper comfort into the heart of another
Facing the hurricane

With a sense of sadness, yes, briefly I spoke to my students,
Saying that my work is both long division
And seeing that helping work-as they stood listening
Very carefully to our collective breath.

Look to the helpers, they are there, they are us. They are you.