I sit all alone in this faculty lounge and consider how
my life’s been spent till now and question where
I went awry and ponder darkly just what
I’ve become implies and wonder if I’m not whom (or who?)
I could or should have been, too, and I forget why
I even try to do this job, and rue which
roads not taken, etc., etc., when
the bell tolls for me and I must slog away to Period 3, where
I will gamely face my class, who (or whom?)
I’m paid to teach (and dearly love, I do) but whose
faces often only bear a bland or bored “Whatever.”
But then there are times when we connect, when
epiphanies spark in our eyes, and when
that lightning strikes, then I remember why.
Bruce Ickes worked as a steel erector, a newspaper editor and more recently as a public high school English teacher for 32 years. Occasionally he bestirs himself and attempts to write something that might be of interest to others.