DEW DROPS

I:
Curtain of fog
                      rolling back,
   Walden uncovered
                               for another day,
         a dark grey glass,
              fringed by trees,
      the sky switch
                      thrown,
as the theater of
           nature re-opens,
    glowing against
                   the dissolving dark.

II:
When we came to
sit on the water's
edge,
the fog began to flee
like a retreating
army,
or a shy boy
at a family
gathering.

III:
At the best show in
town,
the fog curtain
lifts, as the spotlights
come up:
    "Ladies and gentlemen
    ...Walden Pond!"

IV:
Sept. 17, 6:30 am
            Walden serves up
   a cold slap in
   the face,
and I hear Thoreau
          shouting from the
          opposite shore-
   "Halloo there! Get busy
   living! The morning
   is the heroic age!"

V:
As I swim with
       my students,
6:30 am, in holy
           waters of Walden,
    I thought of others, fine week last spring,
                         sitting, 13 hours, MCAS exams,

and I wept a pond full,
               until golden autumn sun
        burned away all "curriculum
                frameworks"
                       
                             with the morning mist.



September 17, 1998




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