IM To A Facebook Friend
IM to a Facebook Friend
I sometimes daydream of the IM I’d write to you, Facebook friend, so long ago my cherished student in that gracious cream brick building, dusty oak floors, enormous poured glass windows in the room where I hoped to offer each of you a glimpse into a world beyond yourselves. I’d begin the message by assuring you it’s not a pop quiz (wink emoji), not a gotcha question (smile), saying then I imagine how we could exchange places in that musty classroom, you in front
of the blackboard, me in a deskchair
around the circle, not raising my hand,
just listening as you explain how
the good soul I once knew, the righteous
adult I now see online, might champion
a man like Hawthorne’s Roger Chillingworth
(remember how we talked about his twisted
soul inside that sacred space?), a bitter man
consumed with cowardly self-interest, false
pride, unholy vengeance, such an odd choice
of savior to so many in this unhappy country,
even, it seems, to you, a 21st century Noah,
Leah, Abraham, Zipporah, so I hold my peace,
listening for your truth that it might shake mine
loose, and when the bell rings we’d walk out
into what would be a long ago spring day,
down the stone steps, the two of us crossing
the phony line made up by false prophets
separating the saved and the damned.
.
—SL, Sept. 2022, New Paltz, NY
This brings back so many memories! That building; we were in it such a short time but the impact was incredible.
Steven,
I understand there are lines made in life that we imagine few will cross. For me, someone set the line of killing for the protection our country was set. I was forced to cross that line while others protested the line. Today the moral line for what is humanity is spun in the rhetoric of TV. On Sundays those same watchers are told the poor deserve the same reverence as the wealthy. Education bumps up against fear, greed, and survival causing learning to smash like a frightened bird against the poured glass windows of our schools made to grow wisdom.