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Ode to the Calling Tree

Updated: Nov 18

By Boyd Bauman

So DIY

in these abbreviated times,

cold winter weather relayed

through crisp Chrome connections,

students and staff in individual solidarity

scrolling text, X, FB, SC,

html, Gmail, usd.org,

via AT & T,

Xfinity,

T-Mobile,

refresh, refresh,

praying for that freshly generated

AI message.

 

Oh, but I miss that communal half circle

the night before

around the TV’s sacred glow,

gratification delayed as the ABC crawl

of schools scrolled slowly

across the bottom,

rapture almost religious

when the miracle occurred,

agnostics waiting to confirm

upon second coming.

 

And when I was but a green teacher,

my school still nurtured a calling tree

from which a cheery chirp

from our department chair

instructed me to plant myself

and stay rooted all day,

snow days like oxygen

to an educator’s respiratory system,

and I donned my crown

to issue the proclamation

to the next on the list,

from my perch

to germinate joy

down the branches:

listen to it bud,

hear it flower.


 

Façade

By Boyd Bauman


Before first bell in the high school library, 

I walk the stacks to separate couples making out. 

 

Yes, yes, I know, the blossom of young love, 

live and let live and all that, 

but I’ve got a family to feed, my life ordered 

as the Dewey Decimal System. 

 

One boy sees me coming out the corner 

of his eye, breaks off the embrace, 

pulls a book off the 720 section 

and pretends to peruse it. 

 

He’s a white male, 

the type Dewey classified extensively, 

so he extends the performance, 

inquires if I’ve other sources to recommend 

for his essay on architecture. 

 

What a skill is façade, 

how it serves each successive generation: 

from fake it until you make it 

to fake it until you fake out 

more followers, 

 

thoughts I muse upon that evening 

as I follow the trail of commuters 

in flight to the suburbs, 

row upon row of perfect houses 

housing perfect couples 

 

where the fiction is 

no one is breaking up, 

though good sources say it’s ages 

since anyone’s made out 

in earnest. 





 

Boyd Bauman grew up on a small ranch south of Bern, Kansas, his dad the storyteller and mom the family scribe. His books of poetry are Cleave and Scheherazade Plays the Chestnut Tree Café. After stints in New York, Colorado, Alaska, Japan, and Vietnam, Boyd now is a librarian and writer in Kansas City. Visit at boydbauman.weebly.com.



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