toward the more perfect world

believe in the student

at the heart,

right where the most real 

can come into its power,

there the student can realize what is within,

and find the right structure and encouragement

to release the best that aches to express itself,

then vision and choice meet opportunity, 

and the world is renewed,

in one scenario of this fundamental 

interaction of self with possibility,

a young person fights off doubts

and becomes the actor who owns the stage,

the artist who creates the stage

or the costume that shouts the character,

helping are the designer and the executor of the lights,

those who help reveal the story, the telling,

plus the choreographer who knows 

the language of body with movement

and teaches how what needs to be said is said with the physical,

opportunity then can exist for possibility to become real, manifested,

this winter, when doubt and fear 

discourage the best within us,

I have the good fortune to work with a director

who believes so much in the kids

that my enormous belief in them 

seems lesser by comparison,

I get to work with an artist,

a set and costume designer,

who sees the more perfect world 

to which we might go,

and helps students see it, too, 

and find the paths to get to it,

at the heart of our school

is a belief in the power

that each person can live

if he, if she, can but find the way 

to live that power,

to refuse to be lesser,

the teacher then mostly a helper

to the learner who can remake the world,

when that of God within is released,

something new is born, something old is reborn,

and we are transformed:

the world is made anew,

and it is right,

I love any school that helps its students

find their way into the power

that should be their birthright.

by Henry H. Walker

January 26, ‘17