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He spends time to be lasting
(doing right on the day
by preparing the night before),
saying 'Hello'
to the first students in &
smiling to the last
from a well-lit door
while they leave
into the night,
a calm face
in their minds
before them –
little warriors
of etiquette,
puzzled warm by
some decorum.
*To be fair, I think this is a crappy poem - I wrote it in mid-camp with diminished mental capacity, and can't seem to re-write the nursery sing-song out of it.
ReplyDeleteBut I like the illustration :)
Aha! I figured it out! The first 2 stanzas are unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteThe 3rd is all you need: the title gives the subject, then, and the stanza provides the embodiment.
Done: please ignore the first two-thirds (left only as a lesson in poetic-process for posterity).
'Self-defense begins with etiquette.'
ReplyDeleteself-defense begins
with attention to one's whereabouts,
knowing outs and ins like
who has come and who goes
(their pinpoint bows,
their brass 'Hellos'),
like chewing slowly (a cut:
each one),
or sitting up straight
(for a charge, a run).
But where does it go –
this staying alive?
For whom am I kept;
For what do I thrive?
Living for living is
Mechanical, thin.
Mind besting strength?
age declines & growth wins.
Society's edge wears dull
by etiquette's
self-preserving.
Decorum
whets on culture;
its sacrifice, self-serving.
It spends time to be lasting
(doing right on the day
by preparing the night before),
saying 'Hello'
to the first student in,
smiling to the last
from a well-lit door
while they leave
into the night,
a calm face
in their minds
before them –
little warriors
of etiquette,
puzzled warm by
some decorum.