Poetry of Departures
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,
As epitaph:
He chucked up everything
And just cleared off,
And always the voice will sound
Certain you approve
This audacious, purifying,
Elemental move.And they are right, I think.
We all hate home
And having to be there:
I detest my room,
It’s specially-chosen junk,
The good books, the good bed,
And my life, in perfect order:
So to hear it saidHe walked out on the whole crowd
Leaves me flushed and stirred,
Like Then she undid her dress
Or Take that you bastard;
Surely I can, if he did?
And that helps me to stay
Sober and industrious.
But I’d go today,Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,
Crouch in the fo’c’sle
Stubbly with goodness, if
It weren’t so artificial,
Such a deliberate step backwards
To create an object:
Books; china; a life
Reprehensibly perfect.— Philip Larkin
I am about as unprepared for the upcoming school year as I have ever been. Logistically, everything is copasetic: the room is assembled, the lockers assigned, the seating charts made, the lessons planned. But mentally I’m not back in teacher mode yet.
So is it time to chuck up everything and just clear off? Well, not today. I’m going to show up and do my job, and probably within a couple weeks I’ll be back in a familiar groove. But that’s not the same as flushed and stirred, something I haven’t really felt in quite a while.
