by JGAnnino 

 

In those summers, one of my wrinkled writers

flew home to the Canary Islands.

She wrote of lace-making, hacer encaje.

We learned, roseta canaria.

 

Another retired woman penned a piece 

about her WWII surprise – to share military

rations in 1943 with Eleanor Roosevelt, 

flown, in secret, to the Pacific Theater.

 

Events large and small unspooled from

worlds of the many students, events 

decades ahead of my years, events in places

many knew only from magazines.

 

My Teachers And Writers Collaborative books

prompted us, weekly, through our semesters.

Two years of class booklets rolled out.

After, my story included moving away.

 

One by one, those great students of Life

aged out to … whatever comes after.

Excuse me now as I write a little

thing for my last former student.

 

A retired librarian, she has worked 

and mothered and mourned and taught and 

and traced her enslaved ancestor-names

and educated ignorant me, all these years.

 

Homebound, ill, seriously,

after ninety-two vibrant

years of living, she looks for her

postal carrier’s visits.

 

I send letters

enclosed in paper flowers 

wrapped in a printed prayer

paired with a doodled typewriter. 

 

This one travels to her, US-LOVE stamped.

A white postage bird flaps in the upper corner,

tiny beak holding a tiny red heart on a tiny 

pink envelope stamp, enroute to the address far away.