Apple Poem

Teacher’s Apple

Around the old wooden cafeteria tables,

Reassembled and sanded for seminar use,

We sit together to sort through the world,

Such as it is, with an old man’s broken wisdom

And your vital beauty.

We are privileged in this graceful school,

A single tuition exceeding a teacher’s annual salary.

With a year ahead of us there would seem to be

Time enough to glimpse the mystery

At the bottom of the sacred lake.

But then we are so busy giving birth

And distracted by wires and lights.

Quick now, there now,

Round the corner, through the gate,

The arbor, near the orchard, by the stump,

Below the granite ledge,

Look see quick now, there now.

We talk, we read, we write, we argue, we snack

Around the old maple tables.

There is a joy here, an approximation, an approach

An emerging hope.

Today, after class, I find a student

has left gnawed to satiety

an apple core

on the table.