Recipe From a Retreat - By Dianne Ruxton
Take a multitude of
ideas
Packed into a weekend;
A group of teachers
Passionate about their
work;
A variety of strategies
masked as entertainment;
A walk, a run, a
talk, a meal;
A song, a poem, a story, a drill;
A bit of Irony mixed
with
A lot of love...
The end result is
A change in the way we
think,
An alternate view of the world,
But most importantly,
A new
community of inspiration.
English 101
by Dianne Ruxton
Mike,
with the sideways smile
and loose language;
Alec, who accidentally forgot
his pencil
in his locker;
John who enjoyed showing off his
underwear,
And Monica in the front row
who seemingly forgot she was
wearing a mini-skirt.
Jessica with her explanation of how
the six
pills she took daily helped with her depression;
Lisa, Tina, Kelsey, Amy,
Valerie, etc.
who left the class at inopportune times
because... sshh...
they had an "emergency,"
And Leroy, who boasted about his
intelligence,
but refused to read aloud, and when he did,
stumbled over
one-syllable words.
Sean with cigarette burns on his arms
and an angry
expression that could be felt
in the pit of the stomach;
Jacob who came in
with deep,
dark bruises from "falls;"
And Blake with his essay on how to
survive
a night on ecstasy
Tina always asking to borrow
paper
because her mother had spent the money on booze.
Thomas, whose
mother couldn't understand
what the problem was with the essay he
wrote
regarding her birthday gift for him --
a stripper giving him a lap
dance;
And Sheila, whose father wanted to know
if she could read a
different novel
due to the "offensive" content
Will they see the
beauty in Shakespeare's sonnets?
Will they feel the anguish in Steinbeck's
social consciousness,
Or Hemingway's inability to deal with the suicide of
his father?
Is it possible for them to see past the anguish of their own
lives.
