Remotely Teaching / Ask a Difficult Question

A student wrote,

I thought about this long and hard on my walk and I nearly cried

at the sentence.

I asked my students,

"Ask a difficult question.

Then take a walk,
then answer the question."

She did exactly that.

She was eager to please.

Her sentence - 

it read like contrition for a wrong

she hadn't committed.

My assignment -

a punishment I hadn't ordered.

Did she enjoy the strenuous thought

that followed close on the heel?

Did she feel powerful?

But not as I do,

not as the teacher who only has to ask
to make her students march.