THE TEACHER
Expectations, hopes, why.
Because.
You have come for something.
She learned from Bream,
Williams, even Segovia.
She does not act famous
she does not play the guitar for you
you don't dare ask
demonstrations are not in the fee
they are not even extras
they are irrelevant
it's not about her but you
a gift--
the hour is wholly yours.
She excuses herself before we start,
sprays her plants, talks to them.
Uh-oh.
Spot the old hippie and win nothing
the classical guitar Joni Mitchell
frumps and fusses in old sneakers
Howard Dean posters on the walls
pictures of Bush as chimpanzee.
The realization of your age
she is as old as you
but has a hundred concert posters
lining her studio walls
herself and people she's taught
you are the novice
trying to find out how to hold your hands
to learn how playing the classical guitar
is an unnatural act.
But you don't come back.
Can't.
Is this a surprise?
Is any new heartbreak more
than cause for a yawn?
Education is only for the comfortable
Frederick of Prussia could afford
Joachim Quantz to teach him flute.
But you?--your children are too old to sell
they are of age and can object.
But: you learned how to hold your hands
on the guitar.
They are curved in supplication.
KTW/7-16-05
--
Kenneth Wolman http://kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
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"Only silence is shame."--Bartolomeo Vanzetti
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