I gave up using textbooks
long ago
Relying instead
on the lives lived
by my students
to fuel their imaginations
and motivations

Allowing them the freedom
to sort through traumas
of the past and explore hope
for their futures
our conversations became
the basis of learning
validating and affirming

We share in teaching
between lines of compound
complex and simple sentences
learning the flexibility
of the comma to add
of the colon to announce
of the semicolon to gently separate

The period draws an end
but also leads to new beginnings
each line shaping their experiences
giving voice to thought & feeling
each line influencing my perceptions
giving insight and understanding

There is no textbook in the world
more informed than the one
we each write of our own lives
each page a revelation
each page a possibility
of what it all could mean

[Prompt 9: Take a common saying like “To get lost is to learn the way” or “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” or “This too shall pass,” as the basis of writing a poem.]