To Professors Flemming, Lavine, and Cline

Highnesses and Majesties,
as my memories stir
I begin to thank you
and consider how I refused your gifts.

You may remember. You're like:
looking at me from far away
and down from your homes
of freedom and grandeur.

It's like:
you want me to join you
and you offer me a path.

I'm like:
afraid to follow it.
piggishly covered with earth,
shrinking from your open hand,
knowing you would have scrubbed me up.

I'm like:
remembering how you looked at me
when you heard about my choices.

They're like:
all doubts that
seal it in a flash.

I'm like:
picking up hunks
of life, grey and flat against the ground.
instead of great
with books and music
on soft chairs.