The prompt for the day was to think of what serves as a metonym for the place I call home and then to write a poem about my chosen symbol that embraces, as well as complicates, what it represents.

To be quite honest, I couldn’t think of a metonym for the place I call home, so I decided to use a variety of different metonyms that describe my life as a teacher.

I hope you enjoy this little Ode to a Teacher.

Ode to a Teacher

While the world works away at a 9 to 5
and comes home for some R & R to revive,
the teacher’s day has only just begun.
Success demands each night teachers do a dry run

to prepare for the next all-consuming day
in order that children to knowledge belay.
While most teachers daily calm storms in their rooms
to encourage their scholars to grow and bloom. 

There are papers to grade and work to assign
to keep all the littles on track and in line. 
Even when school is no longer in session, 
teachers still must work to hone their profession;

the licensing law says they must hit the books
or suffer the principal’s big dirty looks.
So when the world seems to run on 9 to 5;
there will always be teachers in overdrive.

They will pick up the slack for parents and friends
making way less money without dividends.
As a teacher myself, I must tell it straight,
copping-out is not something I contemplate.

—a draft poem by Carla Jeanne Picklo Jordan 

How many metonyms can you count? Let me know in the comments below.