Constantly Risking Absurdity

Go ahead, laugh as I walk the tight rope.











To the Class of 2005

(with nods to Billy Collins, e.e. cummings, and Lewis Carroll)

When the last bell sounds, do not rush out.
Instead, one last time, with deliberate concentration,
Bend your knees and
leap as high as your heart can take you,
grasping with outstretched hands
To snatch one last wisp of your youth
Before it floats off into the ether.
(Yes, that very same youth you're now so eager
To suffocate facedown in the sand or drown in a cesspool of margaritas).

When you grab it, break off a piece before it vaporizes.
Smuggle it home in your pocket.
Hide it in the deepest part of your closet
Over college,
Over careers,
Over marriage,
Over children.
Over practicality.
Then, when you're really sure that it's probably safe to touch it again--
Enter your closet, carefully, with a lantern and a form-fitting biohazard suit--
(on second thought, send in a canary first and see if it suffocates from the stench of death before you take a chance) to rescue it for a brief reincarnation
Before you die of boredom at the ripe age of 50.

(I'm hiding and teaching in these parentheses childishly hoping that someone sees my irony)


What I really meant to say was that
After you smuggle it home in your pocket—mold it into a coin or into a credit card or better yet a business card or a key (it is very easy to do this it just takes imagination and the will not skill not anything learned)
It is now disguised so that you can carry it around whenever you need it—
When will you need it?
Let's just say that if you go through all of this trouble
(speaking figuratively because it's no trouble to will something)
Then I got a feeling you'll know when.
Ok, I'll give you one for-instance, then you're on your own . . . .
Like when you're at a dinner party (yes, you'll go to those)
And some neverfriendly will insult your politics, religion, or family
And you'll feel utterly defenseless in your dinner jacket

Until you remember . . . inside your pocket is that magically molded key (my favorite disguise),
You can reach in, unsheathe, brandish your handy youth like a swashbuckler,
And then courageously "spit in his eye" (figuratively, anything else would be too adult).

Defeated, the blinded bully falls, crying real tears and wiping saliva from his cheeks,
And to deafening applause Rocky Balboa raises your hand in triumph,
Dylan pours you a long draught from the Fountain of Youth into a loving cup,
And Julia Roberts asks you to be her Prince Charming.

Before you depart, snatch
One wisp of your youth before it floats off into the ether.

Tilling the Garden (Even Dead Poets Like Thoreau Would Agree)

"I did not read books that summer. I hoed beans." Any flashbacks to grade 10, Henry David Thoreau and the summer section of Walden? No? Oh well. Between golf practice, cutting grass, and the now EXTRA-ordinary school business of grading research papers, my blogging muse seems to have taken a spring vacation, probably someplace where the weather is just as nice and there AREN'T any research papers to grade. Lucky him or her. There will be opportunities for me to write before school ends, I'm sure. So check back to Schoolsville, maybe, once a week, where I might again be "quizzing the wallpaper and reprimanding the air" before the year is over. Meanwhile, enjoy John Keating and the boys at Welton.

i thank you God for most this amazing day

Happy Easter.
Nature can make even my benignly neglected front yard
look like
Eden.

It's Ok NOT To

I don't know about you, but from where I was sitting, EVERYONE was paying attention to Milton Creagh yesterday. I didn't have Big Milt's point of view, but within my group of juniors I didn't see or hear a single inappropriate giggle or cynical remark during his entire presentation. Not that there's much to laugh about when it comes to drug, alcohol, and sexual abuse, anyway.

Milton Creagh's talk should give all of you an excuse NOT to take part in the many coming-of-age / senior rituals that you've been looking forward to. If you really think about it for a few minutes, these activities have all the relevancy and meaning of the stoning ritual in The Lottery. I mean what do senior pranks, food fights, senior cut day, drug and alcohol parties, wheeling out of the parking lot, taking part in the Assassin Game, senior week, etc. have to do with the maturation process? Nothing.

Sadly enough for most seniors, in between college acceptances and graduation, there is too little time for schoolwork and too much time for tomfoolery. And tomfoolery mixed with fast cars, hormones, drugs, alcohol, and the need to BE COOL can be a lethal concoction. No, I don't have the 6'7" frame and eloquence of a Milton Creagh that could hold your attention. But I, like most of your parents and teachers, could tell you plenty of stories of a good kids who made bad decisions that led to terrible lives, or worse yet, more dead teenagers.

Somehow in class this week, the subject of teen coming-of-age movies came up, you know, the ones where, in the end, the nerdy guy gets the prom queen, where the quiet girl gets a makeover and wins the football quarterback, where the guys from the wrong side of the tracks beat the guys from the right side in a football game. Totally unrealistic, someone said. I agree.

But no more unrealistic as the trivialization of the so-called fun, typical activities in which these movie teens participate. Where the teens are consuming outrageous quantities of drugs and alcohol, where guys and girls participate in primitive dating and mating rituals, where high speed car chases and races determine which guy REALLY has what it takes . . . all without anyone getting hurt.

Totally unrealistic, I agree.