Teacher’s Story
About ten years ago I wrote a poem that seemed to be speaking in the voice of an unexpected character. It was the birth poem for Teacher, a continuing character in many of my poems, usually carrying forward some wisdom that I didn’t know I had. Recently, Margaret Nash (Peggy) Rubin, a wisdom teacher of mine who is also a beloved friend, challenged me to write Teacher’s story. That prose piece is below, along with several of the Teacher poems that have come to me over the years. You will note that there are no gender pronouns associated with Teacher.
Teacher’s Story
I had not always planned to be a teacher. In fact, as a general class, I held teachers in disdain in my youth. Perhaps that was because I never paused long enough to ask a question that would spark a thoughtful answer.
But no matter. Even a poor student, as I clearly was, can learn enough from adversity to rethink a mistaken impression.
I have gotten ahead of myself, though. Let me return to the roots of my story – the roots of me.
I was born of the ruling class in my country, coddled from the start, expected, without proof of any sort, to be superior in comport, constancy, and congeniality. Indeed, I found these expectations to be no more than proof that I was all of those.
I grew into a person of self-assurance whose only unmet expectations were those I put on others. All who failed my unspoken tests of perfection met the same consequences as my teachers – I held them in disdain.
There was one person, no more than a lowly stable hand, who possessed both the courage to confront me and the wisdom to do so with a touch so gentle that I did not notice the affront. This unwashed ruffian managed, over the course of serving me, to become my only friend. We were of an age and Rafi, the stable hand, often accompanied me when I rode my shining white mount through the countryside.
We must have looked a sight – me on my royal steed and Rafi clinging to the back of a draft animal. But our conversations were profound, and our silences more so. It turned out that Rafi taught me as much as I would need to know to survive.
And that proved to be my salvation.
When the invaders came it was without warning, on a day like any other, and Rafi and I were about our normal business, galivanting through the countryside, nodding arrogantly (me) or apologetically (Rafi) to the few countrymen we encountered.
A small band of raiders, broken off from the larger horde that was, even then, laying waste to my ancestral home (though I would not know of that destruction for some time) assailed us, demanding that we halt and turn over our mounts. Instead, we spurred our horses into a gallop, intent on making our escape. The band took chase, haphazardly shooting arrows at us as they followed. It takes a well-skilled horseman to aim a bow while astride a speeding horse, so I had little fear of any of their arrows finding their mark. We turned into the forest to make that even less likely.
Rafi knew the forest better than anyone and meant to take the lead, but I, in my arrogance, took this badly. I raced ahead of my only friend. The arrow that found Rafi might otherwise have taken me.
Though wounded and bleeding, Rafi managed to pull near enough to catch the reins of my horse and pull us onto a diverging path I would never have seen. Nor did the raiders see it as they raced past us.
I found a place to shelter us so Rafi could recover, saying words all the while of how the wound was not bad, yet at the same time seeing the truth of things reflected in Rafi’s eyes. The only rasping words my friend was able to speak nearly stopped my heart.
“Say me a prayer.”
It was the only thing Rafi had ever asked from me.
Yet it was a thing I knew nothing of.
I had prayed to no one – did not know how. Tears stained my cheeks as I realized Rafi would die wanting. Prayer was a thing I could not give, a thing I did not have. I stared blankly as I saw the light begin to leave the eyes of the friend I loved more than I loved my worthless self. I knew the depth of that love now, and I cried out, not caring who might hear, saying, commanding, “Whatever power might be, here is a soul worthy of your notice. Wherever you might be, take this soul to you. Let this soul shine with the rays of sunlight on summer mornings. Carry this soul into the sky and let it fall as gentle rain and as soft snow and even as raging sleet. Place this soul into the soil of the Earth so that all things growing may feel its richness. Send this soul to anyone in need, as I have always been in need, so that all might be made better for its being.
It was a prayer of sorts, though I knew not to whom. But as I bent to look at Rafi I saw the slightest turning of a smile and felt Rafi’s hand on my own. There came the barest rasp of words “that was a fine prayer, Friend.”
I must have slept then, next to Rafi’s body, for when a pair of strong hands took hold of my shoulders, I was certain that the raiders had returned and found us. Instead, it was a monk from a monastery I had not known existed on my family’s lands.
“I heard your prayer,” the monk said, and for a moment I thought that he was God.
The monk took me then to the stone encircled buildings that lay hidden in an unknown valley. It was this place that would be my new home.
So it was that I spent the rest of my youth in the silent but supporting arms of those whose wisdom shaped the arrogant clay of my beginnings. I became one who was willing to listen for the voices in the trees, in the wind, and in the very stones of the Earth. I often, still, believe I can hear Rafi’s voice clearest of all.
In my studies of the land and all it holds I have come to know myself as a single occurrence of All That Is and to respect my being as a humble one of many. What I learned for myself I longed to pass to others, and so, I became Teacher.
In all my pupils I see three ones – Rafi, myself, and the Unknown. I think of this Unknown as God.
If my pupils disdain me as I once disdained my teachers, I take it as a promise of all we can learn together. In them, I see my past and my future. It does not matter what they see in me.