I slouch into my class, bowed by the brute, <br />apocalyptic shock. No student's eyes <br />forsake the glowing screen; the sound is mute. <br />Their center, Yeats's vatic lines forewarn, flies <br />apart, a deluge soundless as white soot, <br />tsunami boiling dust from toppled skies, <br />benumbs the class, makes exegesis moot, <br />and seizes the innocent with stifled sighs. <br /> <br />The students stir, but no one leaves or speaks <br />so I'm not forced to feign I understand <br />'indignant desert birds' until next week's <br />remarks on beasts that stalk the troubled sand. <br />I chew my lip and mumble class dismissed; <br />follow them out, my pockets crammed with fist. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />[Allusions are to 'The Second Coming' by W. B. Yeats.]<br /><br />William F Dougherty<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/september-11-see-new-revision/
