Serpentine, the path unwinds its innocencefrom building to building in flickering shadewhere my students feed lazy raccoons muffins
and glazed doughnuts, as if to domesticatethe last wild things on this suburban campus,though nothing can make the few deer unafraid
of engines, words, footfalls, the human rumpus,or subdue the fox's wily nonchalanceand teach him not to kill anything helpless.
Here, among these fierce and sentimental students,I stand on the edge of a world not my own,snatching small goods from the large irrelevance
of what we do, making the old sorrows knownto children bearing their first calamities,teaching solitudes to the newly alone,
explaining writers' exile to refugeesand notions of intrinsic worth to half-fledgedbankers, already driving smart Mercedes.
Yet they live by their hope, curiously pledgedto some afterness that will reward and blessthem for gifts that nature leaves unacknowledged
or earnest labours I grade at B or less;they know some need of love that poets speak to,and few can absent their hearts from every class,
however many dronings they may sleep through;they will mark a perfect image or a phraseand hear it years from now, wilder then and new.
