Sitting In

Those first fresh encounters,
eager in innocence,
stories from the dark side
passed me on the fence.

neither quite a player or
spectator of the game,
being played at Harpenden
or in a clinic off Brick Lane.

for that easy intimacy
and ready exposition
of marshalled knowledge,
I’d gladly made ambition!

now time-teased, I find myself
for mind enabled youths,
scrutinised expositor
of half invented truths

who I to teach who every day
a lesson in unknowing is?
who knows that knowing’s not
enough, the heart must give.

TDBT 10.12.01