VOL. XIII, NO. 8
FEBRUARY 25, 1972

An Open Letter to Teachers
By KATHERYN KEARNEY
Farmington, Maine
there are souls buried
beneath the pink and white and yellow passes
lying in a mound on the desk
there are dead children
splashed across the gutters
of every theme you have marked a failure
because its commas and exclamation points
were not yours.
there are children crying inside.
you will never hear them
because they are silenced when they find
that there is no place for different children
no place for anyone who
is not college-bound.
if you listen closely, though,
you may be able to hear the cries of frustration
leaping through the halls
out of the mouths of those who know no other way
of communicating.
if you watch,
you may see the swollen body
of a pregnant schoolgirl
who was only searching for the love
she never found.
walk through the smoking area sometime
and smell the air closely.
watch the dilated pupils
of the eyes of those on grass.
perhaps better, watch their souls
listen to their mouths
instead of shuddering within yourself
and saying, "dirty hippie."
because if you can't listen to them
or won't
the "dirty hippie" may someday start shooting
with a dirty needle
in a desperate cry to make you hear.
give a damn.
let the silent destruction within our schools
end.
it reaches into us when we are not much
more than babies
and it follows us wherever we move.
choking us from day to day and week to week
until graduation.
the destruction reaches
like a heavy tropical sun
grabs our inmost sensitivity
and withers it,
as a rose withers without water.
it burns us,
as hell fire
purging our souls of all the purity and freedom
we ever had.
care.
don't become entangled in the sticky web
of plan books
and passes
and coffee in the teachers' room.
sometimes you remind us of flies
with your legs stuck to the
fine silken cobwebs of life.
murder not the children.
let their minds be.
far better would it be for us
if you were to drive a knife deep within our
physical shapes
and let our minds run free over eternity.
as it is
you are forced to mold our minds
toward the American dream
leaving our bodies to shrivel
and our souls to bleed
as they are cut by the blade.
watch and reach out when you can,
sometimes there is a barely audible cry for help
sometimes there are signs
often there are children hurt over and over again
aching,
crying,
and left to fight against the world alone.
as an angry, pelting rain fights to break through
the glass windowpanes.
there is a new world waiting
but whether it comes in love
and joy and freedom
or in burning violence
with heavy chains of the times
forever bound around the heads of all of us
is the choice that must be made.
reach out; love;
and in spite of all the hurt climbing out of me
i will try to love back.