What is a Teacher?
What is a Teacher?
Is it some fleeting wind,
or a mountainous rock?
Is it a cry in the night,
or the very light of day?
I cannot peer into the mind
of Youth
to see what she teaches you.
As you wander into this
enterprise
what will you possibly learn?
If only I could see
our young lady
on commencement day
strutting to stage
full of life
full of herself
completed by the gift you've given,
then I would know what you are.
But now as through a glass
I stare at the day to come
and marvel at the sight.
How you could risk so much--
not of her, but of yourself--
to take her on this inextricable journey
full of flame and hope and fear.
What is a Teacher?
To leap into the kiln
of knowledge given
and dare to give it again?
Oh, to become such a servant.
To dive from the highest.
To find out what it means
to fly.
Copyright 1994 Dale Haas