Field Trip–for Nick, 1981-2003
The students are unusually attentive today. Etmelinda is not using her mirror and makeup. Neil and Dana are not rolling dice for a buck when my back is turned. The students are strangely focused: Sitting erect and facing forward. I did not know they could whisper. They are dressed like men and women. One of their friends is in a coffin at the front of the church; the principal has allowed us to attend. Some of the toughest girls I have ever taught are crying, comforted by the most cocksure boys.
These are the girls and boys who so heartlessly attend my classes, whose tough-luck home lives have taught them well how to build walls and gamble with loss. These my often nemeses, are now my compeers. We have become more Omega Speedmaster Replica Watches human in this crowded room. Quietly we allow deep pain to show for the first time. We exchange hurried glances, look away, and then back for longer eye contact, seeing each other as we have never seen before. We are doing the best we can do in Oakland, Maine, where today we are forced to think about love.– Douglas Woody Woodsum
2009 by Douglas Woody Woodsum
Douglas Woody Woodsum has taught English since 1982. He has published poetry in Yankee, Prairie Schooner, Antioch Review, Michigan Breitling Bentley Replica Watches Quarterly Review, and The Beloit Poetry Journal. His work is online at Poetry Daily and the educational website www.fishousepoems.org. In 1995, he started a 13-year stint teaching English at Messalonskee High School in central, rural Maine. With his students, he has published ten annual anthologies of oral history and folklore.
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