Wyatt Underwood

how school dazed

I don't remember being dazed by school back in Brasil
but coming to this country and being thrown into the pond
yes, I was rattled, dismayed, whelmed, and wide-eyed
it wasn't the schoolwork
except for English itself
the rest was easy stuff from two years before down there
I would coast until the ninth grade on old work
and English got resolved by one remedial year
bless old Miss Broiles!
who demanded that I learn to spell and gram and diagram
but even that was just study, learn, and memorize
no, it wasn't the work of school that dazed
I was twelve or so, and puberty coursed through my veins
and arterries and capillaries
sparkled my eyes and maybe pointed my ears
widened my nostrils and sensitized smell sensors
girls!
suddenly available and not
yes, they'd been in my classes in Brasil
but you couldn't talk to them, for heaven's sake
and they were separated from the boys
for recess and for lunch time
they were for looking at and listening to and wondering about
but in this country, gracious!
they expected you to talk to them
and know they didn't want to talk about
bicycles or baseball gloves
no, you were supposed to know about frilly things
dances and singers and movies they'd like to see
and however much you were fascinated by their curls
you mustn't touch
and you mustn't too obviously sniff at their scents
or stroke their arms or anything else
they were just there
in reach but out of grasp
ten times as tantalizing as girls in Brasil
and nothing study, learning, or memorization would help
always and everyday a new first sip of beer
fireworks across the sky
a horse kick in the head
that only slowly, slowly, slowly
got better
sorta



two surprizes

once I got the hang of it
schoolwork was no big deal
a shuffle here
a twirl there
now and then a somersault
and even more uncommon
a regurgitating contest
in which we all displayed how much we knew
but never any real work
not in grades one through twelve
so college came as a surprise
I might have flunked before I caught on
these people were serious!
they expected me to learn!
not just a bite a day
but sometimes a full meal
sometimes a feast
and end of semester tests required me to think!
yes, college was something new
no kiddy-stuff any more
I had to swing like Tarzan, tree to tree
except the vines sometimes turned into snakes
just to make the experience more worthwhile
oh damn, but I made it to the other side
and not just barely made it
I made it with a flourish
the sad thing was that then I knew all that
and no one cared
they wanted traits and characteristics
school barely graced me with



impact

graduate school!
somehow I expected to bring all I'd learned
about how to learn
and apply it diligently
in some ways that worked
I excelled in classwork
and studiously avoided labs
and sorta missed the point of all that work
I could solve the problems in the texts
I could solve the problems on the tests
but looking back, I think I missed what I was there to learn
for me it was physics
and I missed that it was a conversation
a way of thinking
a habit of thinking
seeing the world in equations
but showing others what you'd learned
in words you shared with them
my poetry mentor might have said I won
poetry is a conversation
with other poets and with listeners
images and metaphors
reverberations of emotions and ideas
and how a poem completes but does not end
whatever the equivalent of that in physics is
I walked blithely past
and felt like I'd walked into the top of a door frame
when finally I guessed