First Day of Class -- Michael Hettich

 

I was thinking of starting a forest, he says,

when I ask what he plans to do with his life

after he graduates. If I did that,

he explains, I would have to learn self-reliance

and I’d understand the animals. I wonder how many

trees I’d have to grow to become

a forest, a real one. The other students listen silently

and some even nod, as if what he said

was something they’d considered too. But they’ve all told me

lawyer or physical therapist, nurse

or businessperson. There have been no dancers

or even English majors. But this young man is serious,

sitting there in tee-shirt and baseball cap, straight-backed

and speaking with a deferential nod, as though

I could help him--as I’ve been explaining I’m here

to do, their professor. We’ll form a small community

I’ve told them, or I hope we will, and we’ll discuss the world.

It seems to be raining this morning, though I’m not sure

since this classroom doesn’t have windows. It was raining

when I drove in at first light, splashing through the streets:

Some of the students wear slickers; others carry

brightly-colored umbrellas. And now another young man

raises his hand and says that, on second thought,

he wants to be a farm, an organic farm with many bees

and maybe even cows and pigs no one will ever eat

that live like pets. I love fresh milk, he says.

Then someone else tells us she’s always secretly

yearned to be a lake somewhere up north in the woods—

let’s say in Maine, since I love seasons

and I wonder how it feels to freeze tight,  not move

for months, how it feels to open up again

in the spring; and I’ve always wondered how fish would feel

swimming through my body, how that might  make me shiver

like love. And she laughs then. And thus the room grows wild.