The Marbled Sigh

I Lose Sleep Over the Discussion in a Department Meeting About How Students Don’t Write Enough Literary Analysis 

I came back to myself

To the real work, to

“What is to be done.”  – Gary Snyder

My work is to teach which is why sometimes plans 

pull me awake because I want to teach thinking

and all that teaching thinking, it seems,

goes against how most teaching seems to happen

and going against the teaching that has always happened

is real work, which is why I am always shifting from foot to foot 

in front of my students because they are always

waiting for the worksheet or whatever work 

will be graded and so I shift from foot to foot 

because teaching thinking means waiting while standing 

while students are thinking or not thinking 

and I am worried that the students not thinking

are not working because maybe I didn’t work enough

to help them understand that their thinking is enough

or maybe I just don’t know what work is 

and have not given my students work worth working on.

And as I shift from foot to foot in front of my students

because there is so much work to be done

and I don’t know what work is 

                not real work anyways

                not like the work of shovels 

                and stretchers and hospitals and backhoe

                or the work of digging for survivors 

                stitching arm to torso 

                piecing together the parts 

there is so much work to be done

so much time for waiting while standing

so much to shift from foot to foot

watching while I hold 

the answer key and the solutions

hoping that the work is worth their

time and thinking. Hoping that 

the answers the students find 

will be their own.

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Christopher Barry’s poetry has been published in Rising Phoenix Review, Northern New England Review, The Henniker Review, and The Golden Hour. He lives in New Hampshire where he teaches English and runs really long distances.