WORLD TEACHER'S DAY, 2020:POEM:
PORTRAIT OF A TEACHER
By Ayo Oyoze Baje
Who is like the Teacher?
Patient as the Creator’s Anger
against the antics of men,
loyal like the hunter’s dog
even in the heat of war.
Resilient like the spire in the storm.
Who else is like the Teacher?
The perfect picture of penury
clothed like a scarecrow,
tattered from soul-to-sole,
his forlorn face
wearing a permanent frown
like a painter’s masterpiece.
Who is like the Teacher?
Hesitant to drop the cheating chalk
and end his thankless talk,
afraid to end his sacrifice
or measure his sweat in price.
Who is like the Teacher?
The proud parent away from the home
caring as a nurse to other’s children;
molding the moral and the physical,
carving the character out of the man.
Who is like the Teacher?
The catalyst to every government’s popular policy
yet used and discarded at will
like a laboratory guinea pig.
Who is like the Teacher?
blamed for mass WAEC failures
and moral decadence,
derided by the society he nurtured
like a leper’s handshake.
Who is like the Teacher?
Afraid of the next pay day
like Armageddon’s furnace,
with debts staked high
against his common touch
like the sleek cars
and the palatial mansions
of his former students
he sees only in nebulous dreams.
Who else is like the Teacher?
begging for what others get for free –
praying for the Naira Kingdom,
here and now!
By Ayo Oyoze Baje
PETALS and THORNS © 1992.
Photo: Oyoze and some of his former students.
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