So I took my students on a walk

“Today I was so happy, so I made this poem” --James Wright

“Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom." --James Wright "A Blessing"

the 8am sun was still horizontal,
east, a blessing behind one oak
& across the roof of a stone cottage
dappling the grass, the moving cars,
the would-be truants, & the tardy poets
making their way away from classroom bars

they made it past a departed robin,
a faculty parking lot, begrudgingly,
a poster for a cat: missing, a week gone
& still tacked hopefully to the power pole,
next to a sprinkler raindancing to a metronome’s beat,
finally around a tennis court of peers, playing

by the time we made it to the school’s front doors
the experiment had run its course
but plastered walls & artificial light threatened
so in a garden that courts the library
they sat, quiet, near a two-fish pond
& gathered meditatively & beyond their years

there, their silence made this poem, a blessing, never intended.