a poem about bored teachers in faculty meetings

I wrote this a few years ago, after looking around a faculty meeting at several zoned out colleagues.

In the Middle Ages,
were there second-rate martyrs,
friars who offered up
thrice used prayers from folders filled
with last years' parchments?
Did any go to the gallows
rolling their eyes and sighing
heavily?
Were there holy men at the Diet of Worms
doodling runes in the margins of manuscripts?
Did Father Do-Little
look out the window and dream
while others debated transubstantiation and
the Holy Mystery?
Were there monks who phoned it in?
Who celebrates these also-rans,
the guys and gals who may have meant well
in the beginning,
but somewhere along the way got tired?
Let us today praise below-average saints,
hosanna in the pretty-high.
In every group portrait tucked in a triptych,
someone must fill in the background,
come in 5th place in the tapestry weaving contest,
look up adoringly at the Bishop of Chartres.
Today, with the grace of God,
There go I.

middle-age, with storks

Middle-age, with storks

One decade ends. I’m turning thirty-nine.
The years of bridal parties, toasts and such,
Have shifted. Storks are circling overhead.
My friends have lives that center on the kid
Or kids. It might be two, as most of them
Are replicating, building families
Of nuclear dimensions. From the side,
I watch. The wedding guest appears transformed:
A bachelor uncle, godfather, now guest
For turkey dinners, birthday parties. Still
A bon vivant, a raconteur, I wait
For signs from some line coach, perhaps a wave
That calls me off the bench. We’ve reached the half,
And this gay man, now lost in metaphor
That rests in sport, looks up. A clear blue sky,
But in the distance, storks, once laden birds,
Are lifting off, their wingspans open wide.
They soar.

2/23/07