And we look up to him, the old schoolmaster,
Seated at his desk in front of the room,
Urging us to be good - a virgin, a lamb–
Scaring us to work with his dreadful flame.
Like Grandfather in the library,
He wants to be fair, will pause
In the busyness of his days
To walk the boy to school.
•
• •
The silence of a woman's absence.
An empty house, the spoken and unspoken blame.
I'd like to say I did the best I could for her,
But there was my work to be done.
And there was always but.
The honest historian does not write
Of his own times. When I was young
I wanted to be objective. But
There were family scores to settle.
And Madison and Jefferson.
The silence of a woman's absence.
Still after thirty years
I cannot write the portrait of my lady.
•
• •
Fenestration, a word as ugly as the thing
Is beautiful. Mont St. Michel.
Relics of rose windows.
The Lord of Light leaping into shadow,
Hurling himself forward and upward,
Vanquishing infidels
And Saxons.
