into the breech
"Once more, into the breach!"
Kipling shouted at us,
that imperative has fit
how I've felt each day as I go off to work,
dissolution calls at my students:
choose the easy,
choose the selfish,
choose to avoid risk-taking,
yet that risk-taking is at the heart of who we are
when we dare to choose the future over the present,
the larger over the smaller,
the inner voice over the wormtongue
who can counsel us,
I have felt and acted upon an imperative
to exhaust myself in being there for my students,
to fight the good fight against what colleagues and the culture
can convince themselves is where the battle is,
in what the battle is,
too often we get lost in abstract maps of the journey ahead,
or in excessive judgement,
when we should be projecting ourselves into the students
and helping them see who they are, where they are,
and then choosing to boldly go into the breach
that is their true path forward.
by Henry H. Walker
March 27, ‘24
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