oh captain, my captain. . . soon to another ship

Mike Hanas, Headmaster

no one can really know the depths and breadths of another,

neither the back story, nor the current story,

and for someone who serves as administrator,

they stand above us, 

buffeted by winds and storm they can keep from us,

and we below deck have enough challenges of our own

as we keep our focus on our own worlds,

to me Mike gives complete attention to the one he’s with,

to the one in the crowd who speaks to him,

on the personal level he forces the issue to be one-on-one,

though somehow he also keeps his attention

on what the personal tells him about the universal,

Mike loves the intellectual, the dance of ideas,

the coherent thought developed, expressed, provocative,

he loves the venture, 

at least as much in the attempt as in the success.

as head of our school, vision pushed him in his musings,

and he could see where we tend to go,

where we might go,

and push us to choose where we will go,

what the student needs, paramount,

what the staff need, almost as paramount,

and then he finds a crack in the hull,

a tragic flaw neglected for decades,

yet present every day for victims,

and he would not allow the convenient forget,

the ease of dismissal,

the convenient sweeping under the rug,

for he sees, knows, loves each who is hurting,

instead on the prow he leads CFS into the storm,

and, once again, true to us as a school,

the student, each student affected, centers his universe, our universe,

and prices are paid of revelation, recompense, and redemption,

a soul-searching for which he is applauded and condemned,

I feel as a child to a parent,

a child getting old enough to glimpse a bit of the effort, and its cost,

of he who leaned into the storms,

and led us through into the relative calm

that still needs all hands on deck to keep us on course,

Thank you, Mike, for keeping us true to who we are,

I love the self I see now behind your eyes,

one ready to lead the way again for another school,

and who will chart and navigate through new waters,

we will miss our old captain,

and we will find a new captain

to follow and lead the crew, plus the vision,

into whatever tomorrow we need to find,

just like the back story and the current story,

there will be new stories we cannot yet fathom,

but isn’t that life?

a wondrous adventure into the unknown. . .

by Henry H. Walker

September 17, ‘15