we thought of nothing but childhood
and found our way back to people like Encyclopedia Brown
and tales of the Great Brain conquering the newest challenge
did we fall in love with stories, then?
or did we create a safe haven to explore and learn
some times the boy meets the man,
and the books and the characters get left behind
for sophmore dances, where every thing was crazy
a best friend in love with a girl who can't be what he wants her to be
and then there's the flame of bitterness
a burning reed that leaves a haunting image
the scorched reminders of a school age photograph
thinking we are all men here, but really we are boys
the many worlds of the high school and you
it became a jaunt through a city of endless fascinations
those walls, those lockers,
the citizens we called students creating passages,
ways in and out of the realms of academia
and what of all the computer nerds
those dorks blipping and tacking away
codes, and codes, and "let's just give it a try,"
some body wants to see what will happen
existential affirmations that we haven't even realized,
because we are not too connected to that kind of psyche
even an afternoon in Psychology becomes a hollow joke
those late nights listening to rock n roll and
continually ready to believe in it
those mornings feeling as though your world was not a thrill,
but left you believing that this was it
and nothing more
waking without direction, except to bop off to school in your car
(lucky enough to have one!)
but not being natural enough to recognize some thing about you was important
important enough to keep you like a prize
often it is the gifts that are forgotten
give value to the present
these you call your friends, have they walked across your pages before?
perhaps even held them up to the light to see if they glow like lemons
the sun empties it's rucksack full of nuts and confectionaries
o, don't tell us any more about sexism,
we see it practiced in the ladies you wear,
those draping off of your arms
those leading you to lunch, a draft,
and conversations about the logistics of minority suffrage
o, i feel the sun will bring its day upon me,
we will break a path of nothing sacred
not stumbling or incoherent
just quiet, turning, riding out the ebbing season
breaking out of the woods like an angry bear
falling out onto the stream and staggering to rise with
the curls of the rapids capturing fish
easily moving, and letting the forest move along beside you
to feed while you walk in the dark cold waters of Lethe
"feed me an angel," some hungry beggar cries
"i'm not wake enough to even have slumbered."
so they walk to the forest, and they call to the future
some day there will be obstacles
and a fine cathedral of Love
a working network of memories
and this fine cathedral of Love/
but for now it's a glen, and a path way to history
the voices of Nature untamed and without disease
a purity and a peace, the longing for Virtue
nothing is as clear as a sky filled with rain
"see us as we are now," i heard a calling crow cry 
and I turned and i looked, and saw nothing but sky

© 2006 Patrick Bissell