To Our Gary (to Gary Brazel)

To Our Gary

There's satisfaction left in teaching yet,
As may be seen, in some who've lasted long.
Amidst the madness of the endless race,
We still have islands left of silent peace.

There is the labor that is endless, yet
Is done with care to smallest filigree –
No declarations loud, no evidence
Except what may be found by eyes that see...

We saw you Gary, heard you as you worked,
Although you labored unobtrusively.
How many children entered, every year,
Those wondrous rooms, whose doors you opened wide...

We'll miss you Gary, miss that space you filled,
Your silent presence that was comforting...
Your students, they will ask, when you have left,
For you – and we'll, for once, be silent then...

But then, we'll say, perhaps, that you've retired,
So you can do those others things you loved,
To travel far, perhaps, with family –
To walk in wooded hills – in joyful peace...

Your classroom, where you taught, will still be filled,
The desk, where you had sat, still occupied.
And teachers young will come, as we retire,
And some will use the work you've left behind...

So teachers come and work for many years –
And teachers leave, and others take their place.
But each, who gives of labor and of love,
In ways unique, we never can replace...

You left the race that we have had to run,
Creating quiet worlds for those you taught.
We wish that we could emulate your work,
But know there'll never be a new Brazel.

Your name may be forgotten, when we've left,
Except by all those thousands that you taught.
Your work will live in them, our quiet friend,
Whom we'll remember as we age and end.

Perhaps you'll write a book that some will read,
With all those things in it they did not know.
So humans learn and then they pass it on.
And some are there, who take and add to it...

So knowledge grows within our species, yet
There also grows that great forgetfulness...
So madness rules, although the hope remains
That sanity and sense will yet prevail.

2013 June 13th Thu., 3:26 am
Brooklyn