Friday, October 12, 2012

Poetry Friday: About Education

I am too busy these days.  I can tell because I'm not writing, I'm not blogging, and this week I didn't even read the Poetry Friday posts until Thursday evening (and I just skimmed a few).  I'm teaching and taking a class.  My grades are due next Wednesday, too, and teachers need no more information than that. 

Here's a poem for this week.  It seems appropriate.

To David, About His Education
By Howard Nemerov
 
The world is full of mostly invisible things,
And there is no way but putting the mind’s eye,
Or its nose, in a book, to find them out,
Things like the square root of Everest
Or how many times Byron goes into Texas,
Or whether the law of the excluded middle
Applies west of the Rockies. For these
And the like reasons, you have to go to school
And study books and listen to what you are told,
And sometimes try to remember. Though I don’t know
What you will do with the mean annual rainfall
On Plato’s Republic, or the calorie content
Of the Diet of Worms, such things are said to be
Good for you, and you will have to learn them
In order to become one of the grown-ups
Who sees invisible things neither steadily nor whole,
But keeps gravely the grand confusion of the world
Under his hat, which is where it belongs,
And teaches small children to do this in their turn.


Today's roundup is here.

4 comments:

Betsy Hubbard said...

Your right, you need not go on about teaching taking over your life right now. I too have fallen victim to it's grip from time to time. Hope you can find more time soon to do what YOU want. I love this poem and the idea that more things in life are invisible, so neat.

GatheringBooks said...

Here's to invisible things and finding time to breathe. :) Thank you for this lovely poem.

Tabatha said...

Wow, powerful poem, Ruth! I would pull out some favorite lines, but there are too many. Thanks.

Linda B said...

Wonderful to hear this, Ruth. I am in the midst of buying a new home so frantically I am trying to do my job, keep weeding out at my home now, & doing all the new paperwork-arrgh! I'm still reading some of the Poetry Friday posts, but need to dust. It's more fun to read, but the dust piles up! Thanks for finding just the right words!