Dear student, as you leave my class

Dear student, as you leave my class,

allow me to share

some advice and some hopes, I have,

for you.

Don’t leave the words

and their power

Here

As you go

There.

Don’t be so fast to walk away from them,

from it.

I hope for you

that poetry continues to

confuse and delight

with ideas that

challenge and frighten

lift and flood

you.

that stories give you eyes

into spaces you cannotwillnot go,

and force you outside and into parts

of yourself,

of places you are safe.

that characters make you weep

and exalt

and want to be more

than you were before you met them.

I hope for you

--all your life--

that words

make you laugh and cry,

take you to depths and heights of

love, and joy, and pain.

make you wonder

with eyes wide open.

make you better.

Because they are so much bigger than

that exam you’re taking

that essay you failed

Because they will

--if you let them, dear student,--

set fire to your world.

Miss Bell, October 2012