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How good to defer! P -----Original Message----- From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Max Richards Sent: 26 November 2008 12:18 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: snap: once an academic (debugged?) Once an Academic This is the time of year, late spring, when, fast as I could, I'd leave the last examiners' meeting - results sheets signed, our students' fates sealed - and slip away (stern colleagues resumed their stubborn research) to the car-park, thence near the river, leaving the car in a shady place with most of my clothing, search out along tracks by the gum-tree-lined banks my current favoured secluded spot, check on my solitude, unlikely to be disturbed, and strip off (but for dark glasses and sun-hat), wade slowly in, toes tentative in cool mud, the river flow rising against my thighs, embracing my waist, my chest. Should I lift off and float? maybe down to the next line of rocks that angled across the stream? That could be delicious, and the rocks made fine sunning spots, full-length. Or - brace against the current, edge my way right to the other bank, climb up through sedge and clay, reaching for a wattle branch and lever myself up and out. Spring's first butterflies hovered, bees fumbled the wattle blossom, bell-birds rang through the valley, my big book on poetry, or even a small book, deferred itself again. Wednesday 26 November 2008 Max Richards Doncaster, Victoria ------------------------------------------------------------ This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au