Assessment

Assessment always seems to include extra variables.  This time it's allergy season.

In the midst

Of profound allergies

How can I tell

Whether this particular dose

Of antidepressant

Is the right one?

In between sneezes

I assess my mood

Try on difficult conversations.

I watch the birds

In the backyard,

Take in

The pink of the crab apple,

The purple of the redbud,

The trees full leaf already,

Changed from spring

To summer green.

I watch the dandelions,

Remember the surprise goldfinch

Hiding there.

I consider ordering

A floral dress

From the J. Peterman catalog.

Is this dose enough or perhaps

Too much?

Wealth of thought

Every place I work or have worked assesses people and things differently.  In my volunteer job, on Mondays, there is yet another way to assess people.  I am learning the value of multiple ways of identifying things, the value of diagnosis: not to put people in a box, but simply to learn anew where... to begin.  I am richer for it.

Yesterday

I worked

On the twelve page assessment.

I found the check box

For

Poverty of thought.

I know it is

An official term.

Still I see

A child on the street,

Nose pressed to glass,

The outside

Of a schoolroom window.

I want to invite him in,

Invite her in,

To sit in the front row.

I want

To teach to a broader curriculum,

Hold those poor thoughts

In the light,

Expand those poor thoughts

In the light.

I want to mark a newly created box

On a different page:

Wealth of thought

It would read.

A venerable and veritable

Wealth of thought.