The Fragile Geometry of Light

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

Teaching is meant
to be an act of service,
a bridge of bamboo and rope,
knotted with care,
its planks bending
but never breaking
under the weight
of footsteps.

Below, the ground blooms green,
fertile with ignorance,
a kind that craves tending.
Each plank is shaped
from what we know,
the knots pulled taut
by the desire to know more.
But even bamboo cracks,
even rope frays,
when the burden becomes denial.

Truth, too, should be alive—
not the dead weight of coral,
pale and brittle,
but the supple shift of river water,
its surface dappled with sunlight,
its depths dark and unknowable.
Truth is both clarity and shadow,
the possibility of drowning
matched only by the thrill of discovery.

Yet in some classrooms,
truth is stifled,
choked like a sapling
reaching for sunlight
through a lattice of undergrowth.
Its roots tangle,
not in ignorance,
but in the heavy vines of pride.

There are teachers,
hardened by time but untested by change,
their years folded tightly around them
like woven palm fronds,
their rustling mistaken for wisdom.
They wear their age like armor—
not protection, but weight.

They do not exchange ideas;
they drop them carelessly,
like overripe fruit bruised by the fall,
the sweetness turned sour.
Their lessons are tough-skinned, bitter,
the kind you chew on but cannot swallow.

To challenge them
is to summon the storm,
to send a single gust
that unravels their fragile canopy,
a shelter that was never strong enough
to weather truth.

It is not the mistake
that enrages them—
it is the sound of it breaking.
The loud, raw splintering of certainty
as truth presses upward,
like the relentless root
of a mangrove breaking the mud’s skin.

When a young teacher,
or a student with hands calloused
by the work of asking,
presses a finger
to the hollow coconuts of their certainty,
they are not thanked.
“You don’t know enough
to correct me,” they say,
their words as sharp
as machetes hacking through underbrush.
Or worse,
their voices roll in thick,
heavy with ceremony:
“Respect your elders.”

But what is respect
if it demands silence?
What is wisdom
if it refuses the rain?
If it cannot shed its withered leaves
and sprout anew,
what good is it?

They forget
that teaching is not
about permanence,
but the courage to let words fall—
to let them scatter like ash
on fertile ground,
where truth might take root.

Instead,
they cling to their mistakes
like fishermen gripping
nets worn thin by years of use,
the holes gaping,
their catch already lost.
They insist it is enough—
because they said so.

The classroom becomes a battlefield,
the chalkboard a shield of bark,
the desk a stump,
its rings of age carved deep.
Young teachers,
still green in voice
but golden with hope,
carry the warmth of the sun
in their words.
But even their light is turned away,
mistaken for fire—
destructive, not illuminating.

And the students?
They should grow like vines,
reaching, stretching,
their tendrils tasting the air,
climbing toward treetops.
But they are told to coil inward,
to root themselves in shadows,
their curiosity twisted tight
and buried in the loam of obedience.

The pursuit of truth
is trampled like seedlings
under careless feet.
And in its place,
a quiet rot spreads—
resentment,
its spores feeding
on the damp soil of unspoken anger.

It could be different.

They could see the cracks
for what they are:
openings.
They could look at the light
pouring through
and say,
“Thank you for showing me
what I had not seen.
Let us learn together.”

But too often,
they do not.

And so the young teacher,
the questioning student,
walks away,
carrying the weight
of rejection,
their footprints fading
into the sand of an empty shore.

Not because they were wrong—
but because they were right.
And being right,
in the wrong place,
is unforgivable.

Still, they persist.

They teach,
their words scattering like seeds
from a coconut husk,
floating across the tide,
seeking land to grow.

They endure,
knowing that truth,
like water,
will wear down the sharpest rocks,
will seep through the smallest cracks.

Teaching is not about
being untouchable,
immaculate,
immune.
It is about standing bare,
under rain and sun alike,
allowing the water
to wash away what no longer serves,
letting light
pull new life from the soil.

The best teachers know this.
The rest, perhaps,
will learn it too—
if they dare to unlace
their roots,
to open their palms
to the tide
and let truth flow in.