A GREEN THOUGHT IN A GREEN SHADE

At sixty-seven I still wear that prep school hat.

Though no one sees it, the green and blue segments

cover my baldness; the pert visor I so hated

still stands out soldier-starched,

while its badge’s cornflower

stiffly forgets the seasons and the years.

The motto – as meaningless as the badge –

remains mine

and may very well be my last coherent words:

a green thought in a green shade.

In any case they were the first words I construed

outside my school reader:

the opening six stanzas of Marvell’s Garden

with their six illuminated capitals

hung framed in the hallway.

Long before I knew of The Book of Kells

or the Duke of Berry’s Hours,

I’d stand there strictly alone

mouthing this poem to Greenways School.

That was my time with the lay Jesuits.

Caught providentially before the age of one,

my mind turned on their lathe,

I’ll remain a Greenways boy

to the end.