If (for teachers)

If you can wake up before dawn each morn
And often work 'til after dark
If you can deal with constant aggravation
And resist the urge to bite and bark

If you can eat a five course meal
In less than a quarter hour
And silence thirty yelling voices
With nothing more than a menacing glower

If you can make out the smallest handwriting
And decipher the messiest chicken tracks
If you can survive for days on end
Consuming nothing but sugary sodas and snacks

If you can grade a mountain of papers
Or on a bad day, maybe two or three
If you can face a room filled with hostile adolescents
And resist the awful urge to flee

If you can maintain your temper
When most others would have blown their tops
If you can return home each evening
And not drown yourself in hops

If you can take the constant striving
For monetary goals forever out of reach
And not feel overly despondent
Then, perhaps, you are fit to teach

©2008-Art Belliveau

Apologies

This is just a note to say

sorry

I fell asleep last night

after reading to my daughter

please forgive me

the bed was so comfy

and

it was so peaceful and dark

©2008-Art Belliveau

A Boy and His Best Friend

It was love from the first glance.
Those deep brown eyes, full of hope
Behind the wire bars of the cage
Saying, “Take me home!” Your tail wagging.
Your tongue eagerly licking my offered hand.
A life’s journey began for us then
We knew we’d never leave each other.

Over more than a decade we met
Your puppy days have long since gone
Your step is slower, you’re tired more,
But still in your eyes I see
The joyful puppy within your canine soul.
Your tail still wagging happily at night,
Each time you see me return home.

And I dread that day to come
When you are no longer with me.
Our shared journey over in this world.
Waiting until we rejoin in the next.
A boy and his dog merrily playing
Never to part each other’s company again.
Forever young. Forever content. Forever friends. Amen.

©2008-Art Belliveau

To Emily D.

Here's one from a while back. So few people seem to know who I am writing to here.

To Emily D.

I think I know
in my own faltering way
something of what
you must have felt

sitting in your room
looking out your window
writing your soul onto paper
only to keep it hidden

you had to write
it was in you
demanding freedom
and could not be denied

but just because
the words emerged
into the world
of the everyday

just because they
could not be contained inside
didn’t mean
they were that world’s property

the words were yours
and you kept them hidden
no one had the right
to lay you open to the world

but I’m glad they did


©2003-Art Belliveau

After School Thoughts

In the silence of my empty class,
After school is out and I’m alone,
I think back on the busy day.
Now there’s time to think things through.
Review my words and review my actions.
What could I have planned for better?
How can I improve when they return?

©2008-Art Belliveau

Crying Child, 3:17 am

Crying Child, 3:17 am

She cries in the night
Calling my name
Tears in her eyes
Fear in her voice

Calling my name
Looking for comfort
Fear in her voice
When from a nightmare she wakes

Looking for comfort
She sits up in bed
When from a nightmare she wakes
I hold her so tight as

She sits up in bed
Tears in her eyes
I hold her so tight as
She cries in the night

©2008-Art Belliveau

When I’m With You It Feels Like Home

When I’m With You It Feels Like Home


No matter how far away we roam
You’re at my side and in my heart
When I’m with you it feels like home

Mountain’s peaks or ocean’s foam
We are never all that far apart
No matter how far away we roam

Desert’s bare sand or field’s fertile loam
Whatever journeys we may chart
When I’m with you it feels like home

The sunrise dawn or the sunset gloam
From one trek’s end to the next one’s start
No matter how far away we roam

I know that beneath the sky’s great dome
The two of us will never part
When I’m with you it feels like home

If someone through my soul should comb
They’d find you are my choicest part
No matter how far away we roam
When I’m with you it feels like home

©2008-Art Belliveau

We used to ride the alligator

We used to ride the alligator at the local library. You would look up at me, with those big, blue eyes and ask me so sweetly, “Daddy, can we ride the alligator?” I could never say no, even when I didn’t need to go up to the next floor. But it made you so very happy. You would ask which button to push to call the alligator to us. And squeal with joy when the bell rang and doors opened. In you would rush if it were empty. If not, you huddled close to me, with those big eyes staring shyly. Again you had to push the button, never quite knowing which to push. Your excitement mounted as the alligator shook and we momentarily grew heavier. Then, then the real magic as the doors slid open and we were somewhere else. Again you rushed through the door, your little body turned to pure excitement by the ride.

I cherished it because I knew it would not last. And, sure enough, when you were still three I asked one day if you wanted to ride the alligator. You looked up at me and said, “Elevator, Daddy. It’s an elevator.”

I felt that mix of pride and pain. The one I feel so often as you continue to grow. The pride of your intelligence and vocabulary. The pain of watching you lose your innocence bit by bit. The pain of watching you leave the protected, enchanted world of childhood. And I try my hardest not to imagine what it will be like as you grow older.

©2008 -Art Belliveau

Definition of Blue

Blue is the bottomless pit feeling of soul-shattering pain
&
the calm, serene feeling of soul-filling joy

Blue is the sound of a brokenhearted Lady Day moaning out a melancholy song
&
the upbeat tempo of a cheerful Earl Scruggs sending a banjo tune floating to the sky

Blue is the pale heights of Mt. Everest
&
the near black depths of the Marianis Trench

Blue is as hard and forbidding as a sapphire
&
as soft and inviting as a mountain pond

Blue is a clear cloudless sky over desert & tundra
that can fry you or freeze you if you’re unwary

Blue is deep & vast & infinite

Blue is paradox

©2008 -Art Belliveau

1/07/08

my four year old girl
smiling, laughing, playing, cold
our first snowball fight

©2008 -Art Belliveau