how it amplifies the details
of lost years: the murmur in study
halls, the light that glanced
off waxed wooden floors; the chalky
clouds that rose in frigid air
then sifted down the bannisters
from the felt percussion of
erasers. And the mingled smells
that slicked each humid head tired
from the day’s long schoolroom hours,
the dog-eared books whose spines
and sides we lightly sanded
at year’s end before passing them
on to others— The dictionaries
that held more than we would ever
know, the old Mercator maps we pulled
like shades to cover the dark
green surface of the board—
And we could point, reciting names
of continents and capitals and seas
that some of us now have crossed.
And some of us have stayed,
and some returned. But none of us
remember exactly when or how we turned,
and, turning, left it all behind.
In response to Via Negativa: Prescription.