Poem: 'Chalkface'

Bryony Hart's tribute to Mark Richardson, who retires from teaching this week. 

Chalkface

for MPR (work dad, friend and Excel saviour)

I like to jest that when you were teaching in ‘74

I wasn’t even born yet

that it would be another four years

before I took my first gasp at life

Yet there you were

at the chalkface 

(literally, fine white powder settled on the surface of your skin)

finding your feet 

and stretching your voice

into the four corners 

of shabby English classrooms

that have held you 

and your ideas

for all these years

And here

where you have set your cap

for the past 13 years (and one term, to be exact)

has become a place

where your voice has seeped 

through the cracks

escaped out through 

the battered sash windows

that rudely compete 

with their persistent rattle 

from coastal gusts of winter

lazily letting in the summer screeches of play

Your rich tone echoes across the quad

a tone the result of years of fine-tuning

rebounds off red brickwork

to rebound for evermore 

You think that you have taught your last

farewelled your classes 

from the battered and rundown classroom

where paint peels, carpets curl, doors jam

packed away dog-eared books 

from misshapen shelves distorted 

forevermore from the weighty burden

of your passion for the simple word

closed the markbook

registered the final period

of pupils from your life

as they embark on a journey

without you navigating them

through the commas and hyphens

(and, God forbid, the semicolons, which they can never grasp despite the constant re-teaching)

that punctuate life

Yet little do you know that

your voice 

reverberates

ricochets

repeats

Never a decreasing circle

fading 

to be forgotten

It has been captured 

left a mark 

incalculable

only words suffice

(and as we well know, words are all that matter)

My dear, dear friend,

when I step into 

the new year

your voice will be there

urging me on.

BCH - July 2020