In the Valley

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What was teaching

in that first Pennsylvania winter

but listening to directions

and learning how to drive

on icy two-lane roads

from Easton to Bethlehem?

You were tested

by a deer standing starkly

on the yellow line

and a dead opossum

freezing in the gravel

and the radio playing spirituals

about going home

on a lonesome highway.

The sun skidded to a halt

in the smokestacks

over the river

and I can still see you

climbing the snowy hills

and coasting

past the empty factories

and abandoned warehouses

to a Catholic school

on the edge of town.

You were a skeptic

in the Valley of the Lord

who carried “Pied Beauty”

in your jacket pocket

and drank scalding coffee

in the teacher’s lounge

with two old priests

and a lanky young nun

who played pickup basketball

and noticed all things

counter, original, spare, strange.

What was teaching

but quieting a classroom

and learning how to stand

at a blackboard

with an open book

and praise

the unfathomable

mystery of being

to children writing poems

or prayers

in the failing blue light

of a weekday afternoon?


 - Edward Hirsch

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