NaPoWriMo #28 "The Lioness's Pride"

The Lioness’s Pride

I have my students writing a final
on the infantalization of college students.
It’s a trend I rail against—I teach adults.

But I look at them and what do I see?

My beautiful children. All of them—mine.
My responsibility if only for fifteen weeks.

I am old enough to be their mother—

Older than some of their grandmothers even.
And I am charged to teach them, and not just writing.

I have not figured out a way to teach otherwise.

These are young ones, in my charge, needing help.
This alone triggers the response—the force maternal.

Maternal, but not tender. More feline than human. The lioness.

I can and will cuff them, sometimes with claws, but no one else can.
I am preparing them for a world of predators. Softness will not do.

And at the end of the term—like a cat’s—my job is over.

They wander off, some never seen again. Faded in memory.
But some stay nearer—forever part of my pride. Forever mine.


****
This is for all of the students I've taught. I think they know that I am their teacher for as long as they need me to be. For some that's a term (for some even less!), and for some that's over a decade. They are my pride on more than one level, but I actually can't get this to work. I wrote it with the injustices of America in mind. It's not there yet, but it's also finals week.