For dVerse Poets Pub – Where Punam is our host.
For today’s poetics, please write a poem about your teacher; it could be your school/college teacher, parent/grandparent, spouse, child or life itself. It can be a tribute or you could also write about the worst teacher you ever had. You can also write from the point of view of a teacher, as I know we have some excellent teachers amongst us.
Poetics Tuesday: To ma’am/sir…
The Children Who Taught the Teacher
I thought I came to teach them—
carrying picture books,
coloured pencils,
carefully prepared plans
tucked beneath my arm.
I thought words belonged
to mouths and voices,
until small hands
taught mine to speak.
I learned that silence
is not an empty room.
It has grammar.
It has laughter.
It has anger,
mischief,
questions,
and entire stories
dancing between ten fingers.
So I learned their language,
and somewhere between
my clumsy first signs
and their patient corrections,
teacher and pupil
quietly changed places.
Children taught me
that different
does not mean less.
They taught me patience
cannot be written
on a lesson plan,
and trust cannot be demanded
because an adult
stands at the front of a room.
Later,
my own children taught me
how little adults really know.
Animals taught me
to listen without language.
Love taught me
that strength can be gentle.
Grief taught me
what remains
when everything else leaves.
And life—
that stubborn old teacher—
kept changing the curriculum
without warning.
There were no textbooks
for the hardest lessons.
No answer sheet.
No bell announcing
when the lesson was over.
Yet somewhere behind me
I still hear my grandmother:
Learning and wisdom
are not a heavy burden.
She was right.
The burden was never
what I learned.
It was sometimes
what I had to live through
in order to learn it.
And perhaps that is why,
after all these years,
I cannot tell you
who my greatest teacher was.
I have had thousands.
Some held chalk.
Some held my hand.
Some had paws.
Some broke my heart.
And some
were children
who thought
I was teaching them.
https://www.blenza.com/linkies/links.php?owner=dversepoets&postid=08Sep2026&meme=12476
My new song is out on all streaming platforms.
https://ditto.fm/silenced-but-not-broken
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
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