When you don’t hear back
from the well-respected, beloved teacher
after spending days deliberating
how to write him skillfully,
respectfully,
compassionately;
cultivating courage
to call in, call out, call forward issues important to you:
accessibility, representation, basic visibility,
whiteness decentered,
power reorganized.
How confused you feel
not hearing back
one-month
two-month
three-month
embracing the irony
of the beloved teacher, healer, mystic
of trauma
personal and collective;
trauma almost invariably involving
people not seen, heard, acknowledged;
collectively rooted
in whiteness, centralized patriarchal power, invisibility.
When you don’t hear back
From the well-respected, beloved teacher
And you find yourself triggered
at the invariableness,
engage others in conversation
with kindness and skillful means,
mindful of not blaming
but
holding paradoxes,
knowing
none of us are unproblematic,
unscathed
by trauma
personally and collectively.
When you still don’t hear back
listen deeply to other teachers,
like my dear friend Nanci Lee
who wrote:
continue offering your truth,
kind and generous,
what they do with it, is their own path.
This is stunning and messy work.
Love your triggers.
Love your truth teller,
she can exist on the sidelines too.
We all desperately want to belong.
And
when you still don’t hear back
from the well-respected, beloved teacher
write a poem.
By maureen st.clair