Classic Poem

The early sun is so pale and shadowy,

I could be looking up at a ghost

in the shape of a window,

a tall, rectangular spirit

looking down at me in bed,

about to demand that I avenge

the murder of my father.

But the morning light is only the first line

in the play of this day-

the only day in existence-

the opening chord of its long song,

or think of what is permeating

the thin bedroom curtains



as the beginning of a lecture

I will listen to until it is dark,

a curious student in a V-neck sweater,

angled into the wooden chair of his life,

ready with notebook and a chewed-up pencil,

quiet as a goldfish in winter,

serious as a compass at sea,

eager to absorb whatever lesson

this damp, overcast Tuesday

has to teach me,

here in the spacious classroom of the world

with its long walls of glass,

its heavy, low-hung ceiling.