Tennyson Rethought

Let’s agree in these thundering days, you and I, that
that which we are, we are—no earthshakers we, nor
should heavens be scared
of our daily start-up. Hour bells ring our delivery of endless pat
answers to ear-wet questions struggling in the din, a roar
we each face down with gut-check grit, no fear, unpaired.

Then, another thirty sets of eyes tumbling our temper full,
testing our own test of heart, assessing on a sliding scale
less a merciful curve.
Scriptures say some should not teach, should not address the pull
of time and fate, the inevitable heroic made weak and pale
day in and out, semesters down, the goal to serve

another class, one more year hopefully not mindlessly killed
striving for one perfect, pure sentence in a crafted paragraph written,
seeking Hester’s puritan sin
in Dimmesdale’s rotten lust apple bitten,
and finding Huck afloat, adrift on a river like our own again
where even we, against the flow, are determined not to yield.