Revisiting the Second Grade Classroom


Out here, in the suburbs of the Milky Way,
some 93 million miles from one of its fair-to-middling stars,
it’s almost Autumn.  “Everything’s 3-D!”
a child exclaims, setting down the class’s red ViewMaster,
looking about him, his world gone suddenly stereographic,
a place of shadowy depths and sudden foregrounds,
“Everything!”  Of course it’s just an eye-trick,
just images blending.  But “Miracles abound,”
I’d have responded if it didn’t sound pretentious,
like telling those glazed with the Holy
how holy they are.  So, quietly, instead I say,
“Quite something.”  And “That’s nice,”
as our classroom spins around the sun, 
                                                                        we float
in deepest space, bathed in the light to come.
                                                         

from This Shadowy Place (St. Augustine’s)​