Dim The Rear-View Mirror

I’d rather have a foggy view of mirror’s rear-ward view
Than clarity’s despairing world with keen perceptions new;
Besides, it’s all I’ve got, it works quite well most of the time
And I can get quick benefit from visits to your mind.

What clarity you see in poems’ words I post each day
Is all I have, it’s how I live, my inside view and stay.
Somehow I grope along and figure out a way to go
And in the end produce the goods, at least the part I know.

I was not built to work that way, my mind is just one part
Of larger entity that’s found in inter-action’s art
I compensate as best I can – use what perception’s mine
And try to cross as many times a straight direction’s line.

In White Bear we moved on so fast because the mix of gifts –
I interacted with the thought of colleague where we clicked;
The same was true last fall when we upgraded all that stuff
Two hours a week was all it took to clean my mental muss.

That was the real cost (for me)of her shenanigans
The slowing down (for me) once more and clouding of my lens.
I now know better than to try to work in blindness there
Because the speed and quality I really can’t compare.

I hope to see your project fly, get quickly up to speed
Because the date-line for the product launch that’s up to me
Is still November in my mind, ‘worst case’ we called it then
The geometric curve goes up quite sharply towards the end.

I say that not to pressure action, on your part I mean,
But rather to say ‘eight in pocket, bouncing twice off green’
Nor is it that I do something to make it work like that
But rather it’s not me that works to get things back on track.

You see, for me, that rearward view is not my guidance way
But rather my reflecting view as Jesus has his way.
He gets me to do ‘this and that’ to give him room to act
The lighter load of work is mine, I’ve come to trust that fact.

But fog is mine, out here alone, and that’s frustrating me
The action’s not inhibited, it’s more I cannot see
God  knows I’m blind and grope my way through life – get there somehow
He’s been quite plain how we can lift this side-effect right now.

It is high cost of allergy between the gifts He’s given
To slow us down till we get things turned round, in tune with heaven.
Till then I bumble in the fog, (as other gifts their way)
And for dissolving allergy is what I work and pray.

Meanwhile, the gift He gives to world through my befuddled acts
Is three-fold, this the first, the ‘native’ way of learning facts.
I did come to believe, in prayer-time, it was there for me
To pick up at the post-office, unpack, take out, and see –

That day long years ago when on the castle wall in dream
I saw I had the key to let approaching students keen
Get through the locked-up door – they would have piled up ’gainst the door
So took the costly move to leave my lunch and do some more –

It cost me one more year on contract they had promised me
(I know it was not something that they saw as work from me);
They wanted Cadillacs as students they could polish up
Not Chevies they could well upgrade to seize the winners cup.

I soldiered on, as pointed out in truck that day with you,
Poured everything I had and owned to help those margined few;
Why even they shut down  the work I’d done for them out there,
But still, the work’s gone on till now, success I can’t compare.

Each shut-down that has happened has improved production’s game
Like tennis ball returned to other side of court – not same;
As ‘stretch’ and ‘scramble’ is what makes a better tennis match
Why even this last hiccup has produced thought’s better batch.

That’s why I like the way I do not own the task at hand
My job’s to stay quite open to God’s actions in our land;
It frees me from despair – no single way it must be done
Best General in universe – makes army life quite fun.

I saw last fall an error – splitting CASIL from the pix;
In shutting down that way, it opened up how I could fix –
Because all pictured media is great self-learning way
It gives a sexy process to engage the ‘Native’ way.

This might not seem significant to those outside that group
But what it does is give a way for ‘Natives’ to re-group.
For now they cast about for further scapegoats for their trials
And take on ‘day schools’ for abusing any ‘Native’ child.

But no-one asks the question – “what the active agent was?”
Now if they did the power-group would lose out here because
They rose to power up through the ranks of teacher-training route
A vested interest now exists – white practice now to tout.

 Self-learning is not cool amongst white culture’s elite folks,
And Teacher-Researcher types quite dominate and know the ropes;
The K-to-12 shut down their segment working at White Bear
Within few months of starting up – my lesson learned right there –

The way to harness for the kids culture’s imperative
Is do the work and lay it out – if wanted, they can live.
For that’s in keeping with their way of learner taking charge
Of life and learning for each one – much better, by and large.

So what you saw in working there was answer to a glitch
The work we did solution to some people stuck in ditch;
They plugged it in, the lights came on, great power it unleashed
And even though they shut us down, effects still haven’t ceased.

The part you saw was ‘passion’ part, but just a part it was
‘Get working first the heart in each then stand aside because
Effect is powerful and firm, they won’t divert their way
They drive their trucks at last in life undoing white-school’s way.

Film was the gimmick that I used to get up close to each –
I used the tools to see the part of team was within reach
Of each participant – of course the learning transferred well,
And Cree style, they ‘picked up’ their stuff, the stuff I did not ‘tell’.

I look around at whites who hate school-system just as much,
And find the process works for them with very little touch
Of life-on-life – so fast it works – to guide them on their way,
But I’m aware they need support to walk this different way.

Support not just of talk and hugs and pompoms’ cheery way
But cash and kind and sharpest minds to forge their better day.
“Black-box” you called it – details not the focus that you live
But clarity of thought and lifting fog is what you give.

The Bible said, so long ago, that greater is in thee
The power that makes the things of life emerge for us to see,
Than anything – shenanigans or cancer’s crippling power –
That knowledge works for us as we do business every hour.

One cannot go through death’s dark vale without residual stain,
It clarifies and simplifies new focus often gained.
Though I grope blindly in the fog this thought still comforts me –
Together life’s unstoppable, not matter how it seems.

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