April
14, 2014
My
little boy has been doing a lot of tests at school and nearly every school I go
to sub at these days they are also in the midst of tests. Here is tonight’s poem
reflecting on my panicked Saturday morning taking the SAT nearly thirty years
ago at a small boarding school in North Carolina. And below that are two poems I wrote while
being a proctor last year in May during the state standardized testing at some local
high schools.
The
Cat-in-the-Hat SAT
I
can still see the cafeteria table
And
position in the dining room
There
I sat to take my SAT
It
felt like the world was hinged
And
I would be swallowed
If
it would only open up
The
lock was this test
We
began and it all ran together
I
knew nothing or hardly anything
Set
before me and the bubbles
Kept
rising and being popped
Before
I could fill them in
Time
nearly gone
The
bath full of bubbles
My
head wanting to drift away
Looking
out at the Carolina Mountains
Wishing
I were that bird in flight
Hanging
on top of currents
Taking
her to a new destination
Far,
far away from
The
smell of breakfast lingering
And
lunch about to begin
The
buzzer about to blow
And
I have at least thirty questions to go
I
panic filling in randomly
The
ovals spinning round my page
Like
a tiger pacing her cage
Her
last roar is left to chance
Setting
Standards
You
have one hour for this section
Opening
their booklets
Allowing
the dread in
This
dead-end culture
Filling
in circles
Like
carrion seeking vultures
Ripping
apart the most smart
Because
standardize doesn’t
Even
begin to summarize
What
these students really know
Put
on the spot of someone
Else’s
thinking
Mechanical
questions
Plus
the pressures of time
Some
will do fine
Many
fall to the midline
Those
below fall to depths unknown
Their
moorings ripped away from home
Problem
is they could be
Picasso,
Puccini, or Poe,
We’ll
never be able to tell
In
this endless loop of testing Hell
Copied
Essay
Before
me is what the boy-man could be,
Tall,
pale skinned
A
grown version of my wee man
I’m
used to seeing here
Covered
up fear,
In
this high school classroom
Sits
a stretched out copy
Of
my original
My
little boy
You
almost man
Are
here with me
Flushed,
earnest,
Working
feverishly
To
complete an English test
I
give you the rules
You
follow them as best you can
Don’t
we all when we feel tested?
Across
town my wee boy is studying
the butterfly life cycle today,
Drawing
in his shaky second-grade style,
The
wings, head, body, and antenna,
English
essays have not fluttered into his synapses,
My
child still goes from flower to flower,
Not
sweating the hour against the clock,
Dreading
to hear the “all stop”,
The
earnest student looks up to meet my gaze,
Only
to look past me to find
That
word that escapes him
for
the right statement of purpose,
Predisposed
I look like
I’m
checking to make sure he’s not cheating,
I
think my boy’s eyes are more blue,
Geared
wider still to all things new,
The
essayist puts down his pencil to crack his knuckles.
My
boy doesn’t know how to do that yet
And
my son would laugh asking Mr. Essay
To
do that popcorn-like noise again and again
As
sounds bind my little larva to people
He
has whole conversations made up of one question,
A
test of your listening abilities
To
follow what he desires to know
From
that one moment
Frozen
in repeats
Until
he knows what it is
To
do, to be, to hear,
He
wonders with his ears
His auscultation brings forth so many questions
There
isn’t a test to contain it
The
act of popping your knuckles
Can
be a whole symphonic movement
Involving
that single very solitary question
Where
something like that may come from
I
hear my boy asking you now
Essay
boy-man looks like he could be a good big brother.
He
might show my son such things
And
my wee boy would practice it
Until
he found his wings
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