If I were young in Wales,
and studying Chaucer in Swansea with students
from Llanelli or Carmarthen or Merthyr Tydfil,
I would hear the cleaning woman who chatted as she worked near
my room that overlooked the gardens not the Bay.
She would say, arms outstretched,
“Open your arms wide to life,
take it all in, right now,
nothing between you and life,”
then she would hug me breast to breast.
If I were young and in Wales,
I would go to the gardens
my student’s black gown worn over my clothes,
climb the tower, a “folly,” twenty steps up to nowhere
going round and round to the pinnacle and
stand among the tree tops and pink rhododendrons.
On my perch, in my American accent,
I would shout to the students
strolling in the gardens after dinner
(after we prayed in Latin at high table),
“Open your arms wide to life,
do you hear me,
you bloody, swotting fools?”
FEWalls
Comments