bad haiku for the first full week of july. (the return of greta...)

it's been one week since

the last term ended, and i

can do little more

than sit with little

ambition.  the coffee is

warm, the garden begs

for attention, the

birds chatter when the feeder

is empty. i bask

in the emptiness

of immediate purpose,

intentionally

lacking intent. oh,

thirty years of tending an

academic plot,

plotting my escape,

and maybe i am starting

to resign myself

to the fact that i

am as rooted as landscape –

and as much noticed.

lately, the notes i

write on student essays are

clearly magic, inked

invisibly, clear

as air and just as grasped. oh,

man. the shapes a bright

container … mandates.

tee hee.  the rote with which my

students perform is

ghastly. who taught them

to ignore instruction while

asking, "is this what

you want?" what i want?

what i want is a thinking

student, a student

who reads, a student

who ignores the siren call

of the text, a class

with the texture of

unfinished tapestry, a

garden of words and

thoughts, and summers that

last longer than the novels

on my list, and an

empty inbox, and

the strutters ball daylily,

and a little rain,

and more coffee, and

one single night with viggo

mortensen – but i

digress … and i should,

as this is summer, and the

sunlight beckons, and

the moonlight brightens

the tiny, white alyssum

that borders the path

that leads to the chair

where i can contemplate the

landscape that recalls

a certain calling

more fruitful than writing with

invisible ink,

a small plot inked with

hydrangeas and monarda

and coreopsis

and sweat and wine and

thoughts of a greener fall than

all of those before.