1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Gratitude To All Teachers

When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake, 
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?

Water that once could take no human weight—
We were students then — holds up our feet, 
And goes on ahead of us for a mile. 
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.

By Robert Bly
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-bly

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Next Read Around is Nov 12, 2021 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

Robert Bly’s poem, Gratitude To All Teachers, tells how our teachers provide us a crossing in life that gives us something we can stand on, however tenuous it may seem as we test our own feet and find our own way. Perhaps we need to freeze the truths we receive from them long enough to make the passage; to walk a mile over the surface they have given us with the uneasy courage to place our feet where they have never been until we are surrounded by a stillness their voices cannot penetrate. Only then can we find our own voice, which one day shall become the frozen surface for the passage of those yet to come.

Prompt Menu

  1. Think of a teacher that helped you make a crossing in your life and journal or write a poem about that person, the impact it had on you, and what that crossing lead to in your life.

  2. What “truth” have you learned from a teacher (or teaching moment) that has stayed with you throughout the years and that has served you in a positive way? This could include a family saying (like “never eat more than a mouthful”) or a “truth” that you can express in a simple statement. Use that tidbit of wisdom as your prompt.

  3. When have you “placed your feet where they [your own feet or your teacher’s feet] have never been?” Journal or write a poem about the experience.

  4. How has a teacher, a coach, a mentor, or someone in a similar role, given you the courage to do something you feared doing? What did they do that gave you that courage?

  5. Journal or write a poem about something(s) that you were once afraid to do that you now do with confidence.

  6. Journal or write a poem about a time when you started a new venture or headed down a path and found yourself isolated, surrounded by stillness, with no clear directives of what to do or how to navigate. What happened, how did you get through it, how did that experience impact you, and what did you learn from it?

  7. How would you like your descendents, or future generations, to think of you? What would you like them to say they learned from you or your life?

  8. As usual, write about anything else from the poem or life that inspires you