The child I left your class to have
Later had a habit of sleeping
With her arms around a globe
She’ d unscrewed, dropped, and dented.
I always felt she could possess it,
The pink countries and the mauve
And the ocean which got to keep its blue.
Coming from the Southern Hemisphere to teach,
Which you had never had to do, you took
A bare-walled room, alone, its northern
I passed by the school where I studied as a boy
and said in my heart: here I learned certain things
and didn't learn others. All my life I have loved in vain
the things I didn't learn. I am filled with knowledge,
I know all about the flowering of the tree of knowledge,
the shape of its leaves, the function of its root system, its pests and parasites.
I'm an expert on the botany of good and evil,
I'm still studying it, I'll go on studying till the day I die.
I stood near the school building and looked in. This is the room
I was a math major — fond of all things rational.
It was the first day of my first poetry class.
The prof, with the air of a priest at Latin mass,
told us that we could “make great poetry personal,”
could own it, since poetry we memorize sings
inside us always. By way of illustration
he began reciting Shelley with real passion,
but stopped at “Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” —
because, with that last plosive, his top denture
popped from his mouth and bounced off an empty chair.
Children, when was
Napoleon Bonaparte born,
asks teacher.
A thousand years ago, the children say.
A hundred years ago, the children say.
Last year, the children say.
No one knows.
Children, what did
Napoleon Bonaparte do,
asks teacher.
Won a war, the children say.
Lost a war, the children say.
No one knows.
Our butcher had a dog
called Napoleon,
says Frantisek.
The butcher used to beat him and the dog died
of hunger
a year ago.
Our substitute is strange because
he looks a lot like Santa Claus.
In fact, the moment he walked in
we thought that he was Santa’ s twin.
We wouldn’ t think it quite so weird,
if it were just his snowy beard.
But also he has big black boots
and wears these fuzzy bright red suits.
He’ s got a rather rounded gut
that’ s like a bowl of you-know-what.
And when he laughs, it’ s deep and low
and sounds a lot like “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
Is it, then, your opinion
Women are putty in your hands?
Is this the face to launch upon
A thousand one night stands?
First, please, would you be so kind
As to define your contribution
To modern verse, the Western mind
And human institutions?
I
Don't worry if your job is small,
And your rewards are few.
Remember that the mighty oak,
Was once a nut like you.
Our eye goes past the hieroglyphic tree to the swimmer
carving a wake in the water. And almost to the railroad bridge
from which the swimmer might have dived. Then, as though
come to the end of its tether,
our gaze returns, pulling toward the blemish
on the surface of the print. An L-shaped chemical dribble,
it sabotages the scene’ s transparence
and siphons off its easy appeal.
At the same time, the blemish
joins together the realms
of seer and swimmer
in our experience of plunging
into and out of the image.
