First Meeting, English Comp

I watch you choose a seat;

I wonder just how soon

you'll start to question why

you've come, but now you listen

with respect. I lecture:

"Free yourself to write."

I wrong you; I should urge

you to free your life instead.

But even that is not

exactly what I mean.

If you could see the earth

of a pine woods cut and scraped

to make a road—its new

bright redness bare and rich—

and smell the crushed green branches,

you might sense the pain

of broken crusts, of truths

wrenched, bleeding, from the depths.

You'd know then I don't ask

you for an easy goal;

you must learn to use the blade

(three credits for your soul).

Copyright © 1990 Marian Jane Dickinson