Education Matters Online
Feature

Volume 2, Issue 1: November 5, 2003

We will

never hear your voice again.

You’re gone.

Absent. That fine old teacher’s heart

pumped your brain

to death, hemispheres awash

in galleries of red,

but they kept you going

until your daughters

came to say goodbye

and then, let go,

with a final breath,

you

and your playful mind dissolved

as quietly

as a looted library,

ideas

and their lightning connections

gone.

Yes, your sweet-wise, lilting-Irish voice

is stilled.

But when you crab-walked across the floor

oh how

the kindergarten kids laughed and

loved you–

everybody’s white-haired grand-dad.

And how

you loved the word when it flew upon the wing.

(In memory of Dermot, who passed away on June 13, 2003)

Let us not take thought for our separate interests, but let us help one another.
(OSSTF Motto)

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