She tried to cool the coffee by a gently blowing as she stirred.
And I focused on her eyes because, of everyone in our class,
Her eyes were the ones that mattered most.
Of all our fellow pundits, she was the one that had the most to say.
“Do you ever think of the corners of time?”
I smiled but stayed quiet, not sure of her meaning.
She said, “But I’ve been stirred
With these feelings, kind of like regret, for all the time
We’ve spent in class.
I know they teach us well, or at least that’s what they say,
But I wonder if we’ve ignored what matters most.
Of us are trying to get to the meaning
Of some poem or what some writer is trying to say,
There’s all this life going on just outside the window, this life stirred
By nature—I don’t know—a bee on a flower or something our class
Would never see. Maybe the slow eroding of a creek bank over time.”
Into the corner of the room, probably one that was ignored the most.
Sipping my coffee, and wrapped in philosophy, I felt so filled with class,
Like a poet in some artsy café, groping for intense but elusive meaning.
I think I understood her words, and my pride was stirred
Although I wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“We don’t see them. We look over them all the time.
But even though they aren’t the events that have us stirred
With strong emotions, they are the ones that happen the most.
Maybe they are the ones where only God provides the meaning.
They are the ones we don’t see while we’re in class.”
I noticed in that corner an ant, but I didn’t say
Anything. I just thought about its meaning
As it crawled up the wall ignored in the crevice of the corner of time.
And suddenly I knew the memories I wanted to preserve the most,
And I knew that more than coffee had been stirred.
I am unsure of most of what I say,
But remember the forgotten corners of time, the backdrop that provides for us the meaning.
