And That Is A Teacher

You came in as faith, with no hardened shell,

A voice that rang true , and a heart that held well,

We weren’t a promise, we came as a clash,

A scatter of tempers, of silence and flash.

You answered us all, with the same kind of care,

You listened in ways, that made all of us dare,

And saw past the volume, the pace, and the pose,

You gave us a space, to be more than we chose.

The loud were not punished, the quiet not missed,

You found where the gap was, and taught us to twist,

Not into the same, but on to a thread,

That somehow still holds, in the lives we’ve led.

We grew out of chairs, and the days that we knew,

But we’re still stitched together, by something from you,

You gave us the start, that we didn’t yet see,

And printed a sense, of who we could be.

Now that is a teacher, not loud, but profound,

Who planted us roots, that still hold in the ground.

She stayed with the messy, the wild and the small,

And somehow she made it, feel safe to be all.

Cathrine Hottran 2025