We were speaking at dinner about teaching and administration
and things that happen and things that don't happen.
And I'm seeing this poem that I sort of wrote/found
during a department meeting.
It was a meeting about how to interact with students
in distress, which is a very serious topic,
but was completely evacuated of anything meaningful by the fact
that we were in a department meeting learning about how
to do things, how to have empathy, as if you can break it
down into certain steps.
This poem is called "Advisory Protocol."
"Remember that it is not your responsibility
to account for the severely troubled.
You need only swallow enough needles and enough bread.
The first disruption will resemble a silver collapse
of the inner ear.
Then it enters the room.
In such cases, you must hold yourself
in a state of tonic immobility, letting your remaining teeth
fall to the carpet.
If you find yourself shrinking to the thinness of a soap leaf,
if you perceive your tongue halting
at its progress across the window pane,
you may have entered a rare or acute oscillation.
Try to exit firmly and with respect.
In this, mark your training.
Mark that each of your hands is a perianth of light.
Where you want it to go can't be reached by lip gloss anymore.
Get up, get up.
You'll have to climb."