On the campus district Up the street from the theater district Down the road from University Circle

Not the first war zone I have worked in They are not how you would expect them to be The smartest children are born in war Because the community is pulled together Shared trauma is like a sweatshirt holding you tight 

Always on the look out for these students A few just too smart for school Most lost in boredom To want to be entertained all the time Is to not ever find Ever chase Nothing solves problems like hard work Math is about finding patterns To solve problems Would describe the scene Most of us leave the furniture alone Words do better describing love What I call them The primary work load of the everyday teacher

I do something to do nothing The end of almost every day We are who and how we return There are more solutions than problems Greater numbers of strategies Why learning never fails I will do almost anything To do nothing

Art is the most important subject in school You need all the other subjects to teach it History contains the history We do things together We do things alone Art reproduces Makes community Where life is lived

 In orthodox Christianity you do not work today.  I always felt a need to do something.  Out in the garden one year away from everyone I was angry and started turning some dirt over.  We had a large garden on the side of hill next to a brick factory.  The hill destined to be gone was all our for the time being.  Discarded car seats are not hard to find outside of town.  I was just opening up a flower bed along all the drought tolerant bounty.  We didn't have water there, but they had local wisdom.  Our yield would change with the rains but never nothing. I had all of the anger in my arms turning over dirt till I forgot what I was mad about and could see what I had created.  It wasn't a question in my mind.  More like seeing a face.  I had dug the outline of Ohio.  I knew this flower bed would be gone and I would find myself again in Ohio.  There was a big rock in the place of Cleveland something to climb.  I foun...

I knew the roads of Bosnia very well Watched as the trees grew along the way Then there was this afternoon in Visoko I passed often through to Sarajevo back to Zenica The name simply translates high which made no sense Always had places to go and detours around Often there were two bridges One being repaired and one to get across So the people wouldn't throw trash in the river It would just fall upon the next bridge Then one day the bridge made whole No detour in Visoko Instead of the detour I came up a rise The sky at my feet I almost jumped up out of the car If that was something I could do I would have Something of me had jumped up out I had no idea where i was in the world Transfixed upon the sky I was not afraid I was simply wondering where I was Had I ever seen something so beautiful A pyramid of the sun A day I remember I learned I was in Visoko and understood at long last the name  My life had become muscle memory Trauma was our profession It was good to get away Away from ...