On Signing Up For A Phd Poem by Sibghatullah Khan

If I make it,
I'll lose my innocence,
and for my blessed life embrace
that haughty, enlightened ignorance.

After that, I think,
common, ordinary things
will not be my meat and drink

For sure,
I'll wear no more
that old I-don't-know face,
and to hide my knowing not
and my feeling not,
I'll increase my pace.
And just in line with a scholar's taste
I'll put on an ungainly haste
I'll walk fast an' talk walking past.


Will wear those know-all creases on my brows,
and generalize to criticize
and make simple, ordinary, beautiful things- -
like songs of birds,
the sitting together of boys and girls,
and bees humming on a honeycomb,
roseate sunrise and russet sundown- -
big questions of metaphysical import.

Then, you know, I'll be
a PhD