dudemanflab's Diaryland Diary

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Thoughts and a poem

I've been thinking a good deal about graduate school as of late. Do I want to become an English teacher?

Why not a career in welding?

There was almost joy in joining metals. I could wonder at the bubbling and starkening of molton steel, admire Neal's deft hands as he cut a circle, laugh at blue-collar jokes, rage against the man, but I was only passing through. Marked so, or self-demarcated, I couldn't step across to their side, that place of domestic beer, big trucks fronting bigger egos, and a smug understanding of the world's ways . There was also their side--an incredulous headshake about my degree ("What are you doing out here?"), a fixed question mark in the eyes when I explained myself. I have a feeling, given time, that would have passed. Part of me thinks that habit is all it takes to change and adjust. Another part rears and rebels saying, "You are one man. Who else can you become?"

The men made up work most Saturdays,
facile metal molding, "coulda closed my eyes,"
shoptalk and coffee, truck details,
a discipline of put-off trifles,
like the housewife that says,
"How did I forget the milk?" and lies.

Maybe not as measured a move as golf
swings to shirk off their ennui,
not plotted escape routes, but a rambling
from the four-walled loan, the trees
and perennials no one had planted, the stalled
affection of teenage children. Did they gamble

a delay, a break, a pause could change
the doldrummed air? Or like the nun
who humbly quarters
her plate, ascetic and arranged,
saving several sugared bites, or one,
as if wholeness needed borders,

could discreteness bring them there?

5:41 p.m. - October 13, 2007

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