Adrift
As a teacher of our finest youth
To tend the gardens of the mind
I labored long & many years
From children into worthy men I made – the rows I pruned,
The weeds I burned.
From ancient verse to memory I seared each word in each small mind
With fearsome work they learned to prove
The triumph of their mastery
Long chants of grave, judicious care
Rang through young voices in clear air & with perfect calligraphy
Each reflected what was learned – of me—
As strokes upon the surface of a still, ice-silvered lake.
For I admitted no mistake in training to obedience
& confidence from willfulness
young boys who seemed to thrive these tests
& made a pillar yet of me
increased my pride & arrogance—while submission I commanded
I storve to teach humility by pointing out each minor flaw
Sharpening wits as if upon a surgeon’s blade &
Venerating self-control.
While power’s gone or changes shape, yet live
The memories which time & place alone cannot forgive
Yet please forgive the mind of one old man from whom now
Most memory and power have fled
& who retains no word but mention in history, no name
& whose only slight & fleeting momentary fame
comes of the One he could not teach
one ocean-fish he could not catch;
whom, when His uncle brought Him in to me
His reach I could not grasp, but after struggle threw Him back.
My balance gone as if I’d slipped upon the deck of some small ship!
His bearing showed no trace frivolity toward me
O, that I well knew to make straight
& hard! With both punishments and reward
But this One pure & simple Child
With clear, wide gaze & clearer voice
Expressed all answers to the riddles I had not yet even asked
& worked so clean & fine! With such intent
my greatest scholars sat in awe of Him! Imagine!
A child whose years were scarcely five or six
If I do remembered now how foolishly I stared, jaw dropped
As if a fish well snagged myself upon His hook
While He discoursed the mysteries of the One All-Seeing God Himself
& chanted with a purer voice than ere I’d heard
& spoke all Truth as if it shone through Him from on High—but else,
what set this Citizen apart
while I had strained to reach the Mind,
He saw and effortlessly knew the Heart.
& through the fog that gathered on my frozen lake
I shrank now timid from my own lifelong imposter’s gaze
For all the water that had ever mirrored me
Was as nothing to a droplet of the Ocean of His Grace
Was as breath to the Ocean of the tears that He erased
With One small voice
One ringing bell
That answered Beauty, Truth, Pain, Suffering & Hell
as the flute answers the cannon’s bloody throat
with but one quiet, persevering, patient Note—
that finally caused me to drive Him from the room
where I no longer held capacity to teach
& understood that I lacked even ghost’s authority
I was adrift! But in that place
That dry & endless beach where our souls met
I wandered helplessly & was set free
I saw the Sky & heard the simple jewel songs that angels sing
Felt pearls of truth & wisdom that each surging wave would bring
& shower us with Heaven’s most enduring, brilliant &
surpassing Love, and from that day
I never found the power to teach the same but wordlessly
I listened each hour thence—for that same Voice of perfect purity again
if but in vain.
