literary studies in spring, 1:00-1:50

class outside.
the sun is too bright at last and i'm glad.
i sit on a rock--
head cocked,
left eye shut,
forehead folded,
nose and mouth struggling to switch places.
i think my face is a disorganized picasso version of itself.

dr. tate is backlit.
his face is too near the white sky--
i can't look at it
but i know his eyes are wide.
i know his brows are raised.
sunlight outlines his knees, shins, elbows.
he is glowing a little bit.
he is royal a little bit:
the king of cacophony.
the duke of diction.
gerard manley hopkins reincarnate.
he is "like shining from shook foil."

it hurts my eyes.
i lower them to his shadow:
slightly foreshortened tate-shaped ink
pooling definably at his feet,
ink that climbs the tips of his black shoes
and hides beneath his heels.
his earnest shadow-fingers clutch hopelessly at mulch,
wave over tufts of resolute grass.

"why do men then now not reck his rod?"
his voice has caught the sunlight too.

i think what our student-faces must look like to him.
twenty tense young spring grimaces.