when we’re young, inquisitive and oh so eager yet
to learn about the world and what it’s really like.
Instead, they offer facts and figures, dates, dynastic
lines and books of logarithmic tables, which help you
calculate some things that only Math guys understand.
The lucky ones, peut-etre, learn a little French and, maybe,
join the school exchange to visit some quaint towns
where no one understands a word you say but smile.
And when you’re seventeen, still spotty but so keen
to shave (although it looks a painful way to start each day)
they make you sit exams to test just what you know.
That’s very well and good, don’t get me wrong. I do not
mean to knock good education or insult the French
(nothing can persuade me of the need for cosines).
But does an adult warn you of the way a sunset falls
upon the heart, with blue and pink and gold; magenta
marbled clouds that fade to black against the sky?
Who warns of nights when trains roll down the track
like half-remembered words that thunder spoke
of how we dare not live without our dreams and hopes?
The answer is, of course, that not one adult speaks
a word of lessons still to learn when we have cast off
Maths, forgotten French and grown our first full beard.
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