28 5 / 2010
Quoth the Poet:
Go now into summer, into the backs of cars,
into the black maws of your own changing,onto the boardwalks of a thousand splinters,onto the beaches of a hundred fond memoriesin wait, where the sea in all its indefatigabilitystammers at the invitation. Go to your vacation,
to the late morning cool of your basement rooms,the honeysuckle evening of the first kiss, the firstdip and pivot, swivel and twist. Go to wherethe clipper ships sail far upriver, where the salmonswim in the clean, cool pools just to spawn.Wake to what the spider unspools into a silver
dawn dripping with light. Sleep in sleeping bags,sleep in sand, sleep at someone else’s housein a land you’ve never been, where the dreamersdream in a language you only half understand.Slip beneath the sheets, slide toward the plate,swing beneath the bandstand where the secret
things await. Be glad, or be sad if you want,but be, and be a part of all that marches pastlike a parade, and wade through it or swim in itor dive in it with your eyes open and your mindopen to wind, rain, long days of sun and longernights of city lights mixing on wet streets like paint.
-First Year Teacher to His Students; Gary Whitehead
