The Academic

Another poem I wrote for one of my classes.

i met you in your office, which was three

floors up in an antiquarian house

sinking into the ground more quickly than

venice. i imagined one day, perhaps

even before i graduated, the

earth would swallow up the place completely.

the earthworms would rejoice for that

historic, meaty fuel�"the eaves that

bespoke character and a history

of rain, the worn velvet chairs in the lounge

downstairs that witnessed years of crossed thighs.

or else i met you in the stem building,

an austere affair of glass and iron,

which rose with modern angles from the ground

and echoed slightly, like heart chambers. i

always imagined that as i walked, feet

clacking on the cool floors, a splash of

color in a white, white hall�"a bloodless

heart, a heart pumping air.

there are two ways this story could go. i

could climb up three floors and sit and rejoice

in joyce. or I could spin out atoms from

imagination: carbon, nitrogen.

are you stem or humanistic?

should I say “Realistic” or “Book-Bound”?

in tweed, a blazer, or a white lab coat?  

your glasses are gold and wire-rimmed, or

they are plastic safety goggles that leave

red crescents on your cheeks. books,

pages folded over and inked over,

form the leaning tower on your desk, or

else the periodic table has a

home on your wall, next to a poster of

darwin, biology’s own john lennon.

the real question, though, is not the state of

your clothes, or the manner of books that line

your shelves. the real question is, can your

un-common languages communicate?

will idea-phobia be the

xenophobia of academia,

a lingering hypocrisy you cannot

expunge completely? will you condone the

lofty oaths of loyalty pledged by

the pupils who build barricades out of

lactate dehydrogenase and shelley?

will you shelter in towers of ivory,

utilize a jargon you guard with careful

intent, as though it’s a do-it-yourself

manual to Full Enlightenment?

what really matters is this: will you raise a

generation of thinkers un-thinking

connections, un-crossing trajectories

and reinforcing the safety of

ready-made, pre-approved, straight lines of thought?

you say you won’t�"that you educate not

obfuscate--but sometimes, i’m not so sure

(i swear i want to believe you mean it)

…but i don’t know…

i hope not.

 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

the towers of learning aren't so ivory...i am an English teacher and what I try to instill in my students is the need to question, to think outside the box, outside those towers filled with all that has been handed down for centuries as what we must learn.
and those straight lines of thought?
i like to make them as crooked as possible....enlightenment doesn't come from straight lines.

i really appreciate this poem.
j.