One day a parent thanked him,
but he said she should also
thank his parents,
and all his teachers,
and every person
who passed his way
in sixty-nine years,
and the mountains
that made him strong
thirty-seven years ago,
and the Current River
for the courage it taught him
as a teen,
and the sun that strengthens him
day after day,
and the air
that makes miracles in his lungs
and lets him stand
before his students
and teach
what all these have taught him.
