Last year on April 29 I wrote a poem with this same title, hence, the Roman numeral two punctuating its conclusion. Let this be the second part of a prose poem meditation on the penultimate day of National Poetry Month by the American English Teacher in his potentially penultimate professional year, ending in a rhyming couplet.
I have had three penultimate teaching years in a row. The bottom line is this: I am not ready to retire. I’m a mess. This year, especially early on, I waffled all over the place. Then, almost immediately, I stopped waffling. I knew I was not ready and made my peach with that. Did I just type the word peach? I have not been making peaches.
And yet, I knew, somehow (a meeting with a financial advisor?) that I was not ready. I knew, somehow (the repeated occurrences of joyfulness in the work?) that I was not ready. And I knew, finally, somehow (the passing of a deadline for declaring an intention to retire?) that I was not ready.
The deadline for declaring an intention to retire, by the wayside, was April 1, yes, April Fool’s day, but much more importantly, the first day of national poetry month, and the beginning of the third week of shelter-in-place orders as the result of COVID-19. I transitioned on that day from journaling the plague year to poetry-ing it.
Nearly all of my poems this month have been about, or at least mentioned, the coronavirus pandemic, sheltering-in-place, distance learning, social distancing, abandoned schoolhouses, grieving for the class of 2020, walking the dogs, and sitting in the back yard with birds.
Here’s the shortest commencement speech ever: Class of 2020. You’ve been robbed a little bit, but just a little. Sure, there are things you didn’t get to do that every class for the last 102 years has been able to do, but none of those classes, none of them, have chalked up their school’s courtyard while keeping a safe distance quite like you have–and these things that you’ve missed, ultimately, will be less important in time than the things you didn’t miss. So there. Godspeed. Congratulations. Your accomplishments are legend.
Two beloved colleagues, both long-time friends, one longer and more friendly, but both, it bears repeating, beloved, are leaving the school house. One is retiring and the other will be teaching internationally, and both, I know, are grieving that this last year in public education has been so fucked up. Another reason, as if I needed one, for staying.
It is time to retire the word penultimate. A thing cannot be second-to-last forever. I understand this now, and will endeavor to stop thinking ahead, just as my mindfulness practice tells me, that the most important moment is the NOW moment, the expansion of consciousness in the present–an awareness that poetry serves up better than any cushion. Ultimately, I will retire from the public school system . . .
before I’m toast but not until I’m ready,
and until that day I swear I’m holding steady.
michael jarmer 