It's my last morning in Monson for a while. The sun is shining, the sky is clear blue, the air is chilly with the promise of modest warmth. On my walk to the store for coffee I passed the big mail delivery truck, backing into the post office hatch. I passed a man motor-sweeping winter grit in a parking lot. I passed pickup trucks heading north and south toward their labors. Red-winged blackbirds trilled and swooped. The lake water, ice-free now, rippled like a flawed mirror, and a faraway speck that was a loon curved, dove, and disappeared.

Last night I ate dinner with a new batch of travel-weary artists who'd just arrived from far-flung homes around the country, slightly bewildered but game to spend four weeks in Monson trying to make art. Last night, when she saw me, the chef cried, "Dawn! When are you giving me a book of your poems?" And then, this morning, I walked into the store for coffee and was greeted by name. I am a regular up here now. That's one thing I lost when I left Harmony: the feeling of being a regular. Of course it's not 100 percent comfortable to be a regular. It's also a good chance to feel embarrassed and sheepish, to be forced to take sides, to know for sure that people are talking about you behind your back. Still, it's something to not be a stranger.

Every class morning I write a little remark on the whiteboard, to greet the kids as they come in off the bus. Today I'll be writing this:

Time’s up. You’re in the house. I’m through the door. 

It's the last line of a poem by Kim Addonizio; and in this out-of-context setting, I thought it encapsulated some of what it feels like to be a teacher on the last day of school. So many times I've directly said in class settings, "My task here is to teach myself out of a job." That's true whether I'm working with poets, with teachers, with young people, with my own kids. "My job," I say, "is to help you not need me."

It may be a righteous mission, but it's always a poignant one too. What is more sorrowful, more wondrous, than watching a bright-eyed searcher light out for the territories?