Questions

Questions saved me

when I was young and

anxious

A condition as permanent

as skin

I would ask

and ask

and ask

Gradually I grew

to love the questions

as much as the sanctuary

between them

the creak of eaves

the inhale before

the silence just after

I have always appreciated questions. As the poem above suggests, they have provided me throughout my life with a sense of security. If I was asking, or being asked, a question, it meant there was something safe, something stimulating, something connective between me and another person.  And even the pauses between questions and answers provided me with a sense of anticipation that delighted (and continues to delight me).

This week, my students are leaning into questions through exploring "Ubi Sunt" poems (literally, "Where are [they]?" in Latin), as well as Pablo Neruda's Book of Questions and Padgett Powell's The Interrogative Mood.

We're looking at questions as launching points for poems, realizing that there are often poems that rest beneath the surface of our consciousness, and that sometimes all we need in order to unearth the beauty of our own understanding, our own voice, is a good question.

So here's to a week of questions--good, meaningful questions--that can take us places we didn't realize we needed to go.