To My Students
I am the riverbank
and you are the water.
You flow past me
year after year
fresh
eager
a little wild.
I do my best
to ensure you
a safe passage
and teach you
endurance
stability
and the ways of the world.
But you rush on.
Time passes.
You return
to the familiar banks,
the remembered curves and shallows.
I will not know you,
and yet I will have
a deep memory of your passing.
Your passing
wore me down
changed my direction
made me new.
©Mary Lee Hahn, date unknown