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A little Prufrockian, Max? Lots of seeming going on here. Teaching I have trouble seeing as a commodity, visible or not. But I suppose 'product' is prepared at institutions nowadays. Not sure about the mixture of the speaker feeling his life going downhill - or at least not now offering opportunities for uphill exhilaration - and the flat stuff of minor streets and dead ends. The 'what does matter?' enquiry might be too sprawling a question. The overriding impression is of listlessness. Is this what you are seeking to do here? Bill > On 18 Dec 2013, at 8:24 pm, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > Seldom > > Seldom now do I > darken old doorways, > a shadow of my > > former shadowy > self, sidling along > side streets ort > head down in > thoroughfares > that once I strode up. > > * > > My office door > resembled that one, > happy with obligation. > > My successor > may well oblige > more with wise succour. > > Teaching is > a commodity > utterly invisible. > > As she may know > already entering > mid-career > > wondering about > energies dispersed > in service. > > Invisible ex-teacher, > I won’t knock. > She may be writing. > > * > > Hills I avoid unless > it’s a downward slope, > submitted to tentatively. > > Steep I once did with pride > as if youth were virtue. > Overtaken on all sides > > by youth I mutter: > your time is short. > Yet mine is shorter. > > * > > I seem without intending > to have turned > off the busy main road > > into a no exit street. > None of us go out > by the way we came in. > > Some plan their send-off > or have it planned for them. > Some outlive all > > who might mourn for them. > It matters little. > What does matter? > > * > > Should we meet here > by chance, after a few words > you’d hear me say, > > Well, I’d better > be heading back. > Back? Which way is that? >