The English Professor

He is blue flannel, set off
from the white walls and
black chalkboard and
dusty drab brown blinds
that stand righteously between
us, the students, and the midday sun.

His hands punctuate each sentence
in wide arcing gestures—
periods are thrown like a dart
and commas shined like a jewel
and ellipses plucked like grapes
from a vine in Piedmont—
and he talks of Emerson and Thoreau
and Whitman and the wonder of nature.

A student's notes rustle and fall
like leaves of grass in the wind
and he rises to shut the panes
and block the breeze.