Invades the finite,
When IMMORTAL
Usurps the mortal,
When OMNISCIENCE
Hovers over finite sentience,
The mortal man I am senses
TRANSCENDENCE,
Stirs uneasily,
Shudders uncontrollably, or
Rises, silently in bliss,
Unable even with a literate mind
To ask, "What meaning lies in this?"

Classes start today; summer's met its end,
The books lie waiting once again upon the shelf
To share the lie that education is the path for everyone
To happiness and wealth.

Those who will and those who won't succeed
File in and settle down, day one,
Segregated, aggregated in their rows of need,
Stamped by labels and by scores.

The gauntlet lies before them:
Papers, deadlines, speeches, tests
To find the laurel winners.
And to **** the needy rest.

"Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed,"
Old Emily once said, and she'd be right to say it once again
About the battlefields in every school I've been.

This fall I'm taking time to hear
My students' goals and dreams,
Their challenges and hopes,
To say "I see you with my eyes."
I hope to see their hopes arise.

The race is to the steady, Aesop said,
The plodders beat the plotters in their way,
If we who have the gate keys in our hands
Encourage strugglers to stay.

I heard my mother's song,
Sounds of breakfast,the kitchen radio,
Smell of bacon on the rattling stove,
Heard the slapping wood and wire screen door.

Window open to the sounds of birds:
Liquid flute-songs of meadowlarks,
Chirruping robins on the lawn,
Raucous coughing calls of crows,
The rooster bragging out his strutting call.

Breezes lifted the wet scent of sod,
The ever present smells of earth fresh tilled,
And musty odors of last year's hay.
Life on the farm moving twilight to day...
Everything conspiring to call me to play.

It's not that I wanted to step away from the mic,
Nor wander away from the words;
It's this monstrous paper I'm trying to write
That keeps me from seeing you birds.

So, summer is ending, and I'm sixty-plus pages in,
With twenty or so of references done,
And a chapter or two I have yet to begin
Before I can rejoin the poetry fun.

I'd best step back out before gendarmes
Arrive to see if I'm even alive,
Locked up in this office with silent alarms
As I struggle to finally arrive.

Dissertation resembles gestation;
The fun was in passing exams;
Now I'm paying the past years' tuition
By proving I didn't just cram.

Can't wait to join you all in a few
...months?

Don

if all my fears were water, i'd be drowning.
if all my thoughts were tears, i'd be a river.
if all my worries were raindrops, i'd be a storm.
and
if all my love were puddles, i'd flood the earth.

Starbucks cups of Kenya (fair trade)
Academic palaver and ennui
Interrupted by a hovering sparrow
Just outside our glassy corner
“Sparrows can’t hover”
An ornithologist told his class twenty years ago…
And here’s this sparrow,
Uneducated, I guess…
Hovers above and between us
On the other side of the glass…
Just hangs there
Maintaining for a count
One, two, three, four…
Slips down and then back up
And toward us, just above the glass,
Neatly picks a moth from the brick casing.
The helo-sparrow descends
To consume the pinched moth,
Its dusty wings
Resembling sunflower hulls
Shucked and discarded
Near bleachers after the game.