For my late and former teacher

by Tracy

You always found something more

to show me, shed light on, as if it

couldn’t be helped, as if no matter what

we did, over a decade, to shift it

from this foot to that, rearrange

some shared mental furniture,

we were fixed in one relation:

I still had things to learn. And I do.

Now you continue, demonstrating

just what a year means, the ache, the worth,

the heft of it – even the empty weight:

this year of you gone.

                                       But please go on,

pay no heed to interruption –

when the day’s late and you really ought

to get home, students will always hold you back

                 with one last question.