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Today is the monthly gathering of Sunday Night Poetry Swaggers posts. This month Heidi Mordhorst challenged us to write a farewell letter to our students. We finished out the official school year 2 weeks ago, but truthfully, our school year ended on March 13th.
My emotions have been so torn by the pandemic and recent protests that I am unsure how I would talk to my students about it all. And then once again Naomi Shihab Nye’s Kindness crossed my path. That poem always moves me. “Before you know what kindness really is,/ you must lose things.” I decided to take a striking line for a golden shovel.
When I use another poet’s line to create a poem, I feel that poet is somehow writing alongside me. There is comfort in that. However, from the decision to write a golden shovel to the poem I am sharing, I’ve started and stopped many times. I am still not sure it’s what I want to say, but it’s getting there. I plan to mail both poems to my students as a way to say goodbye.
Dear students, we were together one day, then
pandemic stay-at-home made it
hard to know what is
good and real and right. Our only
idea of kindness
included a drive-by party that
makes
sense,
but may not comfort you anymore.My only
Margaret Simon, Golden Shovel draft
hope is you keep kindness
in front of all that
worries you. Focus on what ties
you to others. Hold on to your
ability to walk in someone else’s shoes
and
empathize with a character who sends
you into their world. You
can make a difference out
of your choices. Lean into
what you know is good. Be the
best you can be every day.

To see other Swaggers’ letters of farewell:
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