lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

Continuing Education

It’s true that school is great for teaching gerunds, nouns and clauses.
Also for the how-to-do’s, the whens and the becauses.
And so I don’t regret my years in university
where I learned about the human mind and its diversity.

Couplets, sonnets, iambs–their knowledge served me well.
Chaucer taught me how to travel, Dante?– to avoid Hell.
Will Shakespeare gave me standards of wit to try to mimic.
And modern poets formed my taste from  Oliver to Simic

But where I really found a classroom that appealed to me
was after school was over, when I was finally free.
Backpacking was geography: islands, mainlands, seas.
And I learned my geology rock-hunting on my knees.

I learn a little bit of life from everyone I meet.
The art of speech in barrooms, diplomacy in the street.
Biology from baby birds fallen from the nest,
and taught to fly from towel racks, their wings put to the test.

All the art I ever studied simply came from looking.
Geometry in midnight skies, chemistry in cooking.
And though the internet gives facts in every form and guise,
It’s life that serves us best because it’s life that makes us wise.

As I was writing this poem, my house guest came down with this sodden baby bird, rescued from Morrie who had the entire fledgling in his mouth.  It appears not to be hurt, so it is possible Morrie saved it when it was washed out of its nest by torrential rains this morning. Remembering earlier rescued birds, I of course made use of it in my poem.  He’s now nestled in towels in a small cage with a gentle heater blowing him dry.

To read more about the continuing saga of the baby bird, go HERE.

Daily Prompt: In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Fifteen Credits.” If you’re in school, are you enjoying your classes? If you’re out of school, what do you miss about it — or are you glad those days are over?