Friday poetry challenge: Passing the test

The whisper of pages being turned and papers shuffled, the gentle scratch of pencil on blue book--as my students write their midterm essays, the room is so hushed that the clickety clack of the computer keyboard up front sounds like a series of gunshots. So I turn off the computer and start typing on my phone, a challenge in the best of times, which this isn't.

Typing on the phone slows me down. My fingers are too fat and awkward to fly accurately across that tiny keyboard, and if I don't proofread, I end up with ridiculous spellings. Just a minute ago I typed sliws, and the other day I nearly hit Send on a text message that said I hope it all hoed well. Hoed? Goes!

But today I am even slower and less accurate than usual because I'm a little overslept. Overslept? No! I typed verklempt but autocorrect didn't like my sowlling. Spelling. Whatever.

This morning some wonderful colleagues came into my office carrying a huge gift basket, a care package to get me through my surgery and my son's bone marrow transplant next week. It's full of things I live--er, love. Like chocolates and hand lotion and puzzles and a whole stack of cards that I will enjoy reading when my eyes get a little less teary. It is good to be loved and supported by such terrific people.

But it's hard to write about it on this tiny screen. 

My nature students are writing midterm essays about the costs and benefits of being tested in the wilderness, so I think I will attempt a little test of my own: can I write a Friday poem in the time it takes them to write an essay, using only my phone? Well it's worth a try:

The pencils fly across the page

As students reach that trying stage

When midterm in-class essays test

Their progress through the wilderness

Of education. Meanwhile, I

Attempt to make my fingers fly

On tiny keyboard, mangling words

Until my message is absurd.

To pass the test, my students pay

A price: more study means less play.

I pay a toll in awkward rhymes

Composed in very trying times.

(The benefit, of course, is clear:

I get to post my poem here.)

 

A sonnet! I wasn't expecting that. Did I pass the test?

And how about you? Write a testament to your trials and leave it in the comments.