Poems

Abstract

In these poems, Zachary C. Wooten reflects on vocation, fragility, and formation through the intertwined metaphors of dust, trees, music, and classrooms. In “Before/After,” he inhabits the precarious space of teaching Moral Choice, confronting students’ distraction, artificiality, and longing while wrestling with his own uncertainty about beginnings, endings, and integrity in an age of technological mediation. “Climbing and Falling” revisits a childhood ascent into a tree of “knowledge and fear,” where a father’s call to jump reframes wisdom as trust, release, and being caught. “Mr. Wise and Prof. Wily” contrasts formative mentorship with pedagogical harm, tracing the wounding and reclamation of artistic identity through the baritone saxophone. Across these scenes, Wooten explores what it means to guide without splintering spirits, to improvise after loss, and to fashion desks from fallen trees. Teaching becomes an act of courageous co-creation in the dust—an invitation to keep climbing, falling, and beginning again.