The Diverse Nature of the Otto Specht Forest

This  is a meditation on our unique school seen through the poetry of our diverse students. The characters are named from trees, like Beech and Laurel, W. Spruce and Sugar Maple, because they and their families make up the outreaching branches of our school. 

The days here are like whole seasons in slow motion, the months like lifetimes, and students grow and change with a night’s sleep making a fool of time altogether. That’s what I think anyway. I’m a teacher here, Mr. Cherry Blossom Bloom.

BEECH

Beech is a student, a lot like everyone else: all trying to learn something and better ourselves, but so different in his capacities. He used to say, “I can’t”, but this year he’s been writing poems like this one:

I like the white snow falling cold on my tongue 

My soul trying to keep me warm from the wind

I play in the snow packing snow balls to play.

The wind talking, swirling through the sky.

When Beech saw that he’d written that poem he shouted, “I did it! I wrote a poem!” That’s Beech, self-doubting and incredulous, encouraged and proud of it! 

CLEMENTINE

Our Clementine is an unmatched pearl: charismatic, cultured, complex and unstring-able. She reminds me of that other great melancholic, Don Quixote, when she wears her stone stubborn face and alludes to the classics. She revels in the sounds of speech and converses casually with anyone in her original renditions of French, Japanese, German, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch.. whatever you like. Her musical milieu is impeccable. She performs long, hilarious moments of improvised recitative. She puns with immunity. Never wanting attention she can’t seem to avoid it.

I heard trumpet crooning, I heard trumpet moaning.

That I heard is the trumpet crooning and moaning

I see the trumpet

The Trumpeter is Louis Armstrong 

And he’s feeling sad

He’s feeling too blue

I was listening to the music I was dancing to the music .

Feeling happy

Glad

Hopeful

LAUREL

Laurel walks during class. Just gets up and walks through a room. He’s thinking, creating something, the character he has to become in order to live into understanding. His desire for knowledge is palpable, though learning is itself an unwelcome chore, so information enters by way of the circuitous paths he carves through the room. It’s like he is creating his own school wherein he learns by way of techniques honed through hours of avoiding the known routes to knowledge in favor of those which he and only he can travel. And, you know? It works for for him. Why stand in his way? 

I’ve known trees

I’ve known trees who love, care, worship, fight, eat, cook and clean

With branches that grow and give hibernating animals

Life and warmth.

My soul has grown into a

Heart of a tree.

It’s beating like a bird,

Beautiful like my family

Trees survive, hard times

Trees and families

My heart has grown from hard

Times like the tree. 

W. SPRUCE 

W. Spruce arrived with a new haircut this week. He’s all lanky, limbs akimbo, a teenager who moves in an untethered way some trees might envy for its freedom. And still other trees would not. Easygoing, quick to smile and laugh for mysterious reasons, W’s eyes are never quite still, always reading the room for danger or opportunity, or who knows what? Always curious.

I.

The teenager with autism’s bars are reads 

(Thus) works understanding.

They are chained by write understanding 

Raucous

How will they break free?

Reading, understanding, sickness

II

Sunflowers are happy

They eat the sun

They revive the spirit 

They understand my senses 

Red barn likes him

The river friends him

SUGAR MAPLE 

Sugar Maple may seem rootless but don’t be fooled, her tendrils spread in all directions seeking any suitable support. She runs with the elephants, the peacocks and the ponies; she sings arias to the pencil sharpener. And in a separate state of awareness she questions and answers questions in multiple dimensions, on multiple timelines. No longing for the past, nor pressing to the future, she strides through the present with confidence, lending credence to string theory. 

The sound of the music is trying to upset

The sounds yes is Yearning and orange

The sound of the music is trying to upset.

I see together and dance Around.

See together and dance Around.

Be feeling America.

In dance around.

Heaven is together dance around.

P. ARTHUR CEDAR

In these three years, P. Arthur Cedar has reached a formidable height; towering over our forest now, we’ve watched him grow in both body and mind. Storms which once threatened to pull out his roots, now meet him and lose their power sometimes. Siren sounds on the wind and airwaves alight on his branches. And as he learns that not every wayward song needs singing, so we will see him in all his pride standing in his place, watching the world below with all the serenity he deserves. 

I am the monk the king

The monk is bad and good

A little bit of both

I dream about helping people

I tryed (obsolete) to be onast (

I hope to find power

GINGKO

With her flavonoids firing and her terpenoids triggering, Gingko is healthier than a horse and thoroughly untamed. Science dates her ancestry back 270 million years, so we are patient with her education, some things simply take time. Meanwhile wisdom works its way through her eyes as she studies you openly and honestly, searches for humanity in you; and as she knows you in a moment’s glance she reflects your love... or not. 

I am squire

I am musical

I dream of making sorrow disappear 

I make an effort to be kind

I hope to find love

I am squire