Hey, Teacher! Remember Me?
By Catherine Hedge
She was waiting at the optometrists
Her new glasses should be in.
He taps her shoulder and greets her,
“Mrs. Jones?”
With a grin as wide as Montana,
He asks her
What she knows he will…
“Hey, Teacher! Remember Me?”
She looks at the man, 35 or so.
Thinning hair, pressed shirt and tie
He holds one baby in his arms
The other, his daughter, tugs his sleeve
Her eyes are cinnamon brown and curious
“Papa, is this the one?”
He smiles, tilts his head and whispers,
“Yes, Mi hija! …You see, I told her…
You were the one who said I could
when I thought I couldn’t
Who made me learn
when I said I wouldn’t
Remember… you put me in the very first row?”
He asks again, worry touches his voice
“Hey, Teacher! Remember Me?”
She scrunches her eyes, looking
Past the years, through the haze
He squirms under her inspection
She catches a freckle dancing just over his eyebrow and
The way he bites his lip to keep from laughing
Twenty-five years disappear like snowflakes on fingertips.
She smiles, “Well, Robbie Lopez! How good to see you!”
They chat a bit, their faces shining. Others walk by amazed.
The baby squirms. He has to go. She sends him off with a gleeful smile.
She’ll think of him tomorrow …with that girl in the very first row…
She sighs, savoring the secret language between the teacher and child..
She knows what the young man really said…
He said….
“Hey, Teacher!
Please remember me,
because
I remember you.”
Archeology Site: Fort Riley, Kansas
By Catherine Hedge
Clack…Clack…Clack…
Crouched by the streambed
The oak-skinned Warrior Spirit
Strikes flint in quick, sharp, rhythm
A duet with bitterns hiding in the marsh
The black-eyed ghost and his chipping stone
Free arrowheads from rocky chaff
Tapping the edges to blood-letting thin
He twirls the point against the sun
As mule deer stare with anxious eyes
For two thousand years, drought and flood
The seasons shift as sand between his toes
Bison and tall grass to asphalt and diesel
Moccasined men to Fatigued brigades
The hills change colors like shedding lizards
Clack…Clack….Clack…
The Warrior hums a tuneless song
The Barred Owl answers
The Spirit-Man stops,
Tilts his head
And listens
He hears us rush by
Like whispers in the cottonwood
Pen In Hand 