Ideal Educator
Youthful noise enters the classroom
as the students take their seats gabbing,
engaged in heated adolescent exchange.
He sits back-turned with his plans in hand:
an escape of fantasy to times long-lost;
remembered now only by sages in their studies.
Order ensues as he rises:
chaos evaporates with his motion.
Histories unlock their collective imaginations.
The audience is transformed in his grasp.
The dreams of children come alive
as they visualize famous
heroes
and infamous madmen portrayed
in a sea of pictures and pages.
With knowledge of the world as his mechanized tool,
the teacher has set their minds ablaze
with curious questioning and debate.
In some of them the yearn to discover the past
will turn cold like a fireplace in the morning.
Others will find their own questions burning
in the answers he offered during those years.
Some pens try to keep pace with the logic
of the facts being outlined that afternoon;
others don't have a trace of the message,
its essence lost within emotional interference.
The energy is broken abruptly
at the sound of the high school bell.
The Robotrons shuffle off into life
like Pavlovian dogs at the harness.
The names and the dates are his focus,
but the teacher seeks only their questions
in his search for unknown answers:
the ones they must one day seek
alone.
George Cassutto
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