Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackboard*

By Daniel Rigney

I.

Among twenty sleepy students,

The only moving things

Were the hands on the clock.

II.

I was of three minds

Like a jazz trio

Playing three different tunes.

III.

The blackboard ushered in the autumn term.

It was an old pal of mine.

IV.

A teacher and a blackboard

Are one.

A teacher and a student and a blackboard

Are three.

V.

 I do not know which to prefer,

The duty  of teaching

Or the beauty of having taught.

The blackboard listening

Or just after.

VI.

Drooling raindrops filled the long window

With dripping glass.

The shadow of the water

Descended like a scroll.

The mud

Traced in the shadow

An undecodable code.

VII.

O young thinkers of Heute,

Why do you imagine golden boards?

Do you not see how the blackboard

That stands before you

Is as real as any?

VIII.

I know American accents

And their inescapable clichés;

But I know too

That the blackboard is involved

In their evolution.

IX.

When the blackboard was out of sight,

Its markings stayed

Until  they were erased.

X.

 At the sight of blackboards

Filled with codes and diagrams,

Even the gods of erasure

Would pause and wonder.

XI.

He wrote over the codes of others

With a cream chalk.

Once, a fear passed through him

That he had mistakenly

Written over

Something important.

XII.

The class is awakening

The blackboard must be working.

XIII.

It was afternoon all morning.

It was raining.

And it was going to rain.

The blackboard sat

In a thin lumpy blanket of chalk.

*with apologies and gratitude to the spirit of Wallace Stevens, author of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”

Author tags:

poetry, open+call, news, fiction, beginning of the fall semester, beginning of the fall term, teaching, wallace stevens, danagram, daniel rigney, thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird