Bill Brown
February 2003

Poetry Lesson


Sitting against the wall outside my classroom,
a student holding the poems of Robert Frost
open to "After Apple Picking," remarks
that he doesn't care about an old man
who is so tired that he dreams about apples.

I walk to my desk, thinking, "Why should a teacher
care about you?" But I am his teacher, so
I ask him into my room and close the door.
I tell him about an old man who worked
in a garage tuning cars, how he scraped

the grease from his hands at night with Lava,
how he dreamed of living in a house boat
on the Tennessee River. His boyhood
was filled with collecting arrowheads
and fresh water pearls. He loved to watch

morning sun burn through fog until the river
current bristled with light. I tell the student
how he worked himself to death, how some nights
he mumbled "carburetor" and "spark plug" in his sleep,
how before my father died, he had forgotten his dream.

The Gods of Little Pleasures, The Sow’s Ear Press, 2001.