Here. I know you didn't beg, but I feel like it was written so it should be posted. Even though this is how I feel about it --> blegh! It's been a while since I've attempted poetry and I feel that everything Bill taught me has been lost (which literally makes me want to cry and/or go back to last year at this time and beg myself to record every lecture he gave in that class). So this is terrible, and I'm sorry.
Bereft
It is the little things, like how pieces
of his hair reflect the manufactured light
in the lecture hall, curling over his collar
with unconscious ease. The faded green
of his buttoned shirt, new to him after
being new to four others. His slouch, where
his neck touches the chair back, his feet touch
the chair, his knees rise to his chin, and his
posture belies his intense focus.
They make me bereft, these things, as does
the wry humor of the professor, his own
posture hunched over the podium, stroking his
beard that is more stars than night these days.
The smell of the classroom in the early light,
as it pours through the windows near the ceiling,
a yellowing tree’s leaves just visible
as we talk about Yeats and Browning
or Steinbeck and Kerouac, wistfully
wishing for fall air to float through,
to take us from this. But then we leave.
My books are closed and my mind is alone
and his hair still curls over his collar.
Hm . . . I actually really like this, with maybe one exception: "His slouch, where / his neck touches the chair back, his feet touch / the chair, his knees rise to his chin, and his / posture belies his intense focus." I'm not sure what it is, but that section distracts me -- I can't quite wrap my head around it. It might be the repetition of wording (like "chair back" "chair", "touches" and "touch") or it might just be that "belies" should be belie (shouldn't it? 'cause it's his slouch AND his posture). But otherwise, I'm a big fan. Very concrete and highly evocative. I think you are indeed a poet, Sara Kelm, and don't let your inner critic tell you otherwise.
ReplyDelete