Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teachers. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2020
"Gratitude to Old Teachers," by Robert Bly
A poem in blank verse--not typical of Bly. But it has his characteristic surrealism, offering a striking comparison, to say the least, all in the context of walking across a frozen lake, no doubt in Minnesota. Bly's book about surrealistic poetry, Leaping Poetry, is terrific.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Teaching
You may lead a horse to water. The horse
may not be thirsty. Or the intuitive animal
might smell something wrong about the
water--or be spooked off it for another
reason. The horse may also have no
particular cause to trust you. If the
horse doesn't drink this time, it may
drink later, and it will probably remember
where this trough or pond or creek is.
So don't be in a rush to give up,
declare failure (the horse's), and
congratulate yourself for doing
all you could. Try a different way.
Look for different water. And anyway,
people aren't horses, so there's that.
Hans Ostrom, 2012
may not be thirsty. Or the intuitive animal
might smell something wrong about the
water--or be spooked off it for another
reason. The horse may also have no
particular cause to trust you. If the
horse doesn't drink this time, it may
drink later, and it will probably remember
where this trough or pond or creek is.
So don't be in a rush to give up,
declare failure (the horse's), and
congratulate yourself for doing
all you could. Try a different way.
Look for different water. And anyway,
people aren't horses, so there's that.
Hans Ostrom, 2012
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