Sitting here on the couch
after my class
My stack of homework
stares me in the eyes
Day after day the same
repetition
Class after class then work
then study time
Burnt out on the college
life two years in
Only two years in and
four more to go
Pondering about life and
my future
Sixteen years I have
spent in these hard chairs
Teaching to teach,
retaining so little
Only twenty years young
many more still
Yet I sit her sulking
about the hours
Hours spent studying and
with homework
Then after graduation there’s
no break
A new routine as I start
my career
A dreamer of traveling
the whole world
No alarm clocks and no
more scheduling
Just me and time to do
what I want most
No deadlines no
assignments, time to sleep
Here I am a deadline for
a poem
A midterm approaching I
should cram for
A lot more homework for
other classes
Not enough money to take
time from work
Not enough time to get
adequate sleep
So I slug through each
day, await a break
Sitting her this late
sunny afternoon
Friends off to party I
sit in my room
Powering through all I
have to do
Just hoping that after I
graduate
After I work day after
day for years
To retire and travel and
sleep in
---------------------------------------------------
BY EDWARD HIRSCH
I used to mock my
father and his chums
for getting up early
on Sunday morning
and drinking coffee at
a local spot
but now I’m one of
those chumps.
No one cares about my
old humiliations
but they go on
dragging through my sleep
like a string of empty
tin cans rattling
behind an abandoned
car.
It’s like this: just
when you think
you have forgotten
that red-haired girl
who left you stranded
in a parking lot
forty years ago, you
wake up
early enough to see
her disappearing
around the corner of
your dream
on someone else’s
motorcycle
roaring onto the
highway at sunrise.
And so now I’m sitting
in a dimly lit
café full of
early morning risers
where the windows are
covered with soot
and the coffee is warm
and bitter.
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