Logotherapy
Reading my wife’s textbooks -
what a relief not to be tested
on them! - browsing, thank you -
no need to take notes - no
underlining or post-it-ing -
not even looking up
hard words: logotherapy,
thymopsychic, pathoplastic…
creaturalness…crikey!
is that like creatureliness?
Oh, it may be useful.
I’m listening for them
on the beloved’s lips -
untainted so far,
but soon assignments
may force them on her -
words to write, not speak.
Didn’t I when I taught
have my special words
paraded before students
in hopes they’d emulate?
‘Contagion of the gown’?*
mostly resisted. Now
I’m reading Victor Frankl
grateful for his passion,
his faith in freedom,
vocation, his lexicon.
*S.Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes:
Fever of Renown,
Caught from the ftrong Contagion of the Gown ;
O'er Bod/efs Dome his future Labours spread,
And Bacons Manfion trembles o'er his Head.
|