by Phil Cline

Professor’s Alley

 

Hurrying along the alley

Between library and laboratory,

My shy girl clutches to her chest

Tired books of science

And philosophy.

Huddled against November,

Her white legs exposed

Against the arrival of winter’s cold,

She, harried, averts her eyes,

Hiding among others in twos and threes.

 

They miss, but not her,

The outlaw berry bush

Breaking through the blacktop.

It is Fresh. It is odorous.

Incongruous to learning.  And to order.

 

They don’t see, like she, above us

Tough rough patterns

Of heavy plodding clouds

Hoarding their precious reservoir,

Against the drying time.

 

They ignore, but she won’t,

Her weary learned professor

In his dying time

Who’s been dying much too long,

Watching little girls like her

 

Trek the short cut way

To knowledge,

To disappointments,

To bitterness,

And age.

 

Anguished, he nods at

Her unspotted face,

Her unmarked, never marred limbs;

The aching perfection of her,

The most nondescript of them all.

 

She not sprinting, leaping, lifting,

She not honed, toned, athletic,

Never for her brief glorious times on the winning field,

Never for her garlands in her hair, nor braces for her shield,

 

She’s just young,

Just young,

Just beautifully,

Pathetically,

Young.