Education

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Life-long learning

is offered

to those elderly whose jobs

have ceased providing

stimulation adequate

to satisfy the curious

and those whose jobs have ceased entirely

who thrash about

to find a mind-thing

to occupy and verify

that brain cells function well enough.

But what of learning’s leader–

the staid formation of a guided tour

through book ideas as foreign

as the fields of some lost land?

The gentle musings of one long

removed from active life

preparing for the grave?

The pandering of some

pedantic pedagogue

promoting what he calls

manna food?

The life-long learner

comes

if true to self

and that which beckons him

to ponder deep desires of early life

when inner voices tried to make him hear

and follow his own siren’s song.

To live uniquely as himself

to view his world

in such a way

that education emanates

from each experience

to teach him

most of all

about himself.