Great Teachers

Classrooms without students are so empty.
They are much more empty than just a room.
They're a place where learning is meant to be.
Without great teaching they become vacuums.

Walls are in danger that they may cave in.
Entire campus buildings may implode
As time rolls back into what might have been:
If no steps, then no path, and so no road.

In a hall, because no classroom will be
Open for us to talk about my daughter,
Mary Shoemaker sits across from me
And recalls the Whitman that she taught her.

She's a teacher my daughter brags about.
She lit the spark that blew her windows out.