May 2: Heroes, My Students, Poem from "Kyrie"

Spent most of today doing end-of-semester grading.

This semester has been a tough one for my students.  Many endured financial problems--loss of employment, parents laid off, businesses closed.  Some dealt with other struggles--mental health, physical health, deaths of loved ones.  Like I said, it has been a hell of a couple months for these kids.

Some simply disappeared off my radar, despite my best efforts to reach out to them.  They just stopped communicating.  Others missed due dates or assignments completely.  I have found myself acting as both instructor and mentor and counselor, trying to guide them through the landmines of March and April.

This past Wednesday night, I had my last Zoom class meeting with my writing students.  As I've said, this group of individuals have been through a LOT.  At the end of the class, I said this to them:  "You know, everyone is talking about heroes in the middle of this pandemic.  Nurses and doctors and healthcare workers.  Let me tell you all this:  you're all heroes in my book.  You've all dealt with the craziness of this semester with grace, courage, and humor.  You all deserve medals for surviving."

Heroes come in many guises.  Some wear face shields in emergency rooms.  Others wear badges and face down gun-toting domestic terrorists who call themselves protesters.  And some take on extra jobs to help their parents pay their bills, and they still submit their papers, take their final exams, and show up for virtual classes.

Saint Marty prays for his students tonight.  For health and safety.  Rest and happiness.

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

Snow heaped like a hat, square gray face,
the drift a shawl gathered at the neck--
a mailbox left unshoveled can be the sign,
a spirit crouching there beside the road--
I was at hand, I followed the doctor in:
Go ye therefore into the highways.
Renie had bee the warning, months before
the universal pestilence and woe.
We'd had a late frost, a ruined spring,
a single jay was fretting in the bush,
quick blue smudge in the laden spikes of lilac:
it was an angel singing--don't you see:
it might as well have been a bush on fire.