Lessons

When I played hookie from summer school
To play softball
And broke my thumb at home plate
Tagging out ‘Fish,’
My best friend’s brother,
I was very careful
Not to learn any lessons
From the experience,
Especially the wrong ones.

I still remember that day
Away from Sir Walter Scott,
The Lady of the Lake,
And its endless cadences
Ta-dumming me away from
A winter of failed Parlez-vous’s
And those frighteningly unsteady legs
Beneath my recitation of
‘In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
a stately pleasure-dome decree....’

To this day I bare the scars
Of a successful summer’s high school day –
The inability to memorize
Even a single line of my own device -
An errant Knight toward Northumberland,
Another smile in the tree…
And seek sanctuary from memory
And repetition
And someone else’s box of chocolate truths.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2021 09:12PM by petersz.

Peter, am I dreaming or had you posted this poem some time ago? I like the thoughts this brings forth about lessons, both formal and from experiencing life. I also understand there to be a message within about the lessons others would want to impose upon us that don't necessarily enrich our lives and can even be limiting. I have thoughts about the methodology of formal education, which I think can be particularly limiting with its pass or fail emphasis, but that's a subject for another day. Liked the poem.

S2L4 its

Mary

Thanks, Mary.

At 8am my grammar tends toward the unschooled.

I think I've written at least one previous poem about some of this before, but I haven't posted this one before.

Thanks for listening [reading] carefully,

amo,

Peter

Keep up the fight, Peter. It is what enables you to continue tapping into that enormous reservoir of creativity you possess.

Joe

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2021 09:46AM by hpesoj.

Thanks, Joe. that is also my understanding of the process. Not choosing to survive is not an option.

Peter

By the way, Peter, the first verse is one of the best things I've read in quite some time. I love those last four lines in particular.

Joe