(no subject)
I sit in my office, and they sit facing me.
I set the copy on a clipboard, at my knees, and the student reads, our heads bowed as if the poem were a prayer.
I follow along, reading the upended words; the ear is freer somehow.
And they bring me these gifts:
BEGINNING my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness-these forms-the power of motion,
The least insect or animal-the senses-eyesight-love;
The first step, I say, aw’d me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish’d to go, any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in extatic songs.
To die -- takes just a little while --
They say it doesn't hurt --
It's only fainter -- by degrees --
And then -- it's out of sight --
A darker Ribbon -- for a Day --
A Crape upon the Hat --
And then the pretty sunshine comes --
And helps us to forget! --
The absent -- mystic -- creature --
That but for love of us --
Had gone to sleep -- that soundest time --
Without the weariness --
Head bowed, listening,
I notice, for the first time, how a voice is like a touch; standing in front of the class, the exchange of voice lacks this dynamic.
It is strange: at forty-five, I am becoming more intimate with senses other than the eye, and especially how the senses inform each other into a sum greater than parts.
I set the copy on a clipboard, at my knees, and the student reads, our heads bowed as if the poem were a prayer.
I follow along, reading the upended words; the ear is freer somehow.
And they bring me these gifts:
BEGINNING my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness-these forms-the power of motion,
The least insect or animal-the senses-eyesight-love;
The first step, I say, aw’d me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish’d to go, any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in extatic songs.
To die -- takes just a little while --
They say it doesn't hurt --
It's only fainter -- by degrees --
And then -- it's out of sight --
A darker Ribbon -- for a Day --
A Crape upon the Hat --
And then the pretty sunshine comes --
And helps us to forget! --
The absent -- mystic -- creature --
That but for love of us --
Had gone to sleep -- that soundest time --
Without the weariness --
Head bowed, listening,
I notice, for the first time, how a voice is like a touch; standing in front of the class, the exchange of voice lacks this dynamic.
It is strange: at forty-five, I am becoming more intimate with senses other than the eye, and especially how the senses inform each other into a sum greater than parts.