Paul (Ode To A Teacher) Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

PAUL (Ode To A Teacher)

Young, aesthetic bound, painting sage,
Of a horse-ridden canopy, of a timeless age,
Your azures, carmines, your expansive hues
Dot with diamond stars firmaments of blues,
And the bows of fair Maidens who listen as they rove
To your Siren songs by the dappled grove
Which seep like honey into their hearts,
Instilling virtue, form and ruling darts
Laced with heaven's truth, its wine.

They pass beneath the academic trees,
On the campuses of high schools, colleges, the vine,
Learning of our Catholic ways
In an embryonic, open haze
As roses aloft, graced by your lovers
Who dwell on pages, gilded, sown.

And the student discovers
On glaciated glades
Bewitching serenades
Before unknown.

Of darkness or elation,
The empirical tabulation
Of your bounteous knowing
Descends as whispering images, snowflakes.
And the drifting white mounds, forever growing,
Where angelic sounds ring from cathedral heights
Awakes
The flickering, ascending lights
In the ageless torpor of the young,
Those wind-blown, wavering, open flowers
To new rhapsodies in time, to literary bowers
Where consummating songs have yet to be sung.

~ John Lars Zwerenz