photo taken April, 2009 by Lisa Murphy-Lamb Houston, Texas
Precious
Lisa Murphy-Lamb
What would
the people
who sit around
my table
enjoying
the food
I’ve prepared and
the wine I’ve
poured say
if
they knew
that once I
sat in math
class
and
while others
around me
worked
steadily at
solving
algorithms
and proofs
that I had
to lift my
feet from the
thick mud
in my mind
the grey, dull
denseness that
weighed heavily
where thought
and understanding should
have whirled
but didn’t
or that
my Baba
straight from the
Ukraine
never learned the
English language
gave birth to
thirteen children
while she worked
her small
farm fields
only able to keep
six alive?
For I’m the person
with the
history
that these guests
around my
table with
the sauce that
once simmered on my
stove now on the
corners of their
mouths
are so
anxious
to keep out of
their own
precious
children’s
classrooms
For
I held onto
the lowest
math grade
all
through high school
and
my grandmother
on my
father’s side
was simple enough
to carry my father nine months
without realizing
he was alive
inside
she waited
for the doctor
to bring life to her son with a slap
to his bottom signalling life with his first
cry
It’s exactly that kind
of generational ignorance
that those
seated around my table,
flushed by the
pinot noir
believe
that is ruining this country
brought in
across borders
that interferes
with their children getting
the educational attention
they
deserve
What if
instead of knowing
me as author,
poet, educator
mother
these dinner guests
knew
that while they were
the learned
offspring-
raised by doctoral parents
in erudite
homes
I came
from mere
high school graduates
that were
affected
gravely
by the
‘80s recession
when my father,
a career middle manager,
was no longer employable
so who
ultimately
ended his working
years as a
used car
salesman?
For it
would put
a kink
in the night’s
discussion
for how could
they
continue to argue
the drain
to
the system-
students who
cannot learn
at a quick pace
who come
from homes that
are not literate
or whole
have no right to
learn side by
side with
their own
gifted children
and in the next breath
ask
me to open
the merlot
and then
compliment me,
the
student with
simple immigrant
roots, foreign
language
inept math skills
blue collar
parents and
a lifetime of
play over
summer camp and
gifted classes
on such
a delicious
meal
and
fabulous evening?
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