He read aloud, his dry and academic voice <br />so quivering with conviction which we did not share, <br />his offering for a footnote which did not require <br />this amiable discursion such as only he could love; <br /> <br />and as I sighed in inward kind despair, <br />and wondered when to break his scholar's drift - <br />his body turned to crystal; sculptured silver-gold <br />in detail; his familiar profile then became <br />by heavenly realignment, ideal, heroic, sublime; <br />his steady gaze, like some divine geometry, <br />focussed on the paper which before <br />had been a spiderweb of tedious, fond thought, <br />was now an arrow shot at truth itself <br />in love, and lifetime's care, and all humanity; <br />a god who had replaced a colleague's frame. <br /> <br />It is enough just to recall that moment's view; <br />no explanation; but the whole world made anew.<br /><br />Michael Shepherd<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/0245-the-vision/
