Deciding the Course My Education Sould Take

Clemens Starck

Maybe I already know
as much as I’m destined to know, for this lifetime,
about small-engine repair.
And also about plumbing.
For that matter, I wouldn’t mind
drinking a beer
to celebrate
an end to plumbing, and an end to small-engine repair.
 
Why not study ethnobotany,
or practice juggling?
I could learn to read Chinese, and start in
on the ten thousand poems extant
of Lu You.
 
It’s unlikely I’ll take up blacksmithing,
or become a backhoe operator.
 
For the time being
I think I’ll just concentrate
on finding the words
for the mist that rises from the fields in the morning,
or the moon
as seen once from Joel’s truck
on the way home from a job in Corvallis.