building relationships

 

the vitality of connections

I am driven by a powerful desire to connect,

to make solid the tentative lines

that can seem too faint to feel real,

as if all-too-ready to dissolve

and leave us as if we are islands in a dark empty sea,

I use food, gifts, words,

to show that who I am

cares about who they are,

all of that giving is both selfless and selfish,

for I don't want to be alone,

and I bet the other finds more worth

through being validated and seen, and cared-for,

than in laboring alone 

with no routes to other people,

I remember another teacher I worked with

whose selflessness cascaded into the selfish,

needing and requiring the students to revolve around them,

early on in my career as an educator,

I wrote that the goal of the teacher 

should be to make themselves dispensable,

so that the student can then soar

and find the others that complete them,

the students so self-assured that they find their own paths,

their own companions on their odyssey

to let their lights shine,

and find others' lights, 

pushing back the darkness.

by Henry H. Walker

January 29, ‘25