On the plus side, sir, we love the anecdotes:
Raleigh’s puddle, Drake’s drum.
That mariner in the Doldrums.
Magellan, Cook and Ponce de Leon.
You never shoot us down
or have us write the date out in the margin.
Dates, you say, are strictly historical.
But since you’re a stickler for observation, sir,
there’s something we’ve detected lately
in the sources of your person,
the way you drift at the whiteboard, penless,
...............................................................starboard from centre
spinning your Age of Exploration globe
until it slows to the brink of inertia,
before resting a palm on its surface.
It’s as though you’re the barrelman, sir,
fixed in the crowsnest of our education,
duty bound, tirelessly seeking land.
In short, sir, we're concerned
you’re becoming that teacher you talk about,
the one from Waterland
who lectured his classes not in history, not strictly,
but in identity, the tension between silt and sea
between sanity and legacy.
That one morning you’ll enter, slapdash
and slightly late, as ever, to simply spin and spin
until the globe dizzies on its axis.
V2
On the plus side, sir, we love the anecdotes:
Raleigh’s puddle, Drake’s drum.
The perils of the Doldrums. Magellan.
You never shoot us down
or have us write the date out in the margin.
Dates, you say, are strictly historical.
But since you’re a stickler for observation, sir,
there’s something we’ve detected lately
in the sources of your person,
the way you drift at the whiteboard, penless,
—————starboard from centre
spinning your Age of Exploration globe until it slows to the brink of inertia,
before resting a palm on its surface.
In short, sir, we’re concerned
you’re becoming that teacher you talk about,
the one from Waterland
who lectured his classes not in history, not strictly,
but in identity, the tension between silt and sea
between sanity and legacy.
That one morning you’ll enter as ever, slapdash,
slightly late, and simply spin and spin
until the globe dizzies on its axis.
Original
On the plus side, sir, we love the anecdotes:
Raleigh’s puddle, Drake’s drum,
Jeffrey Hudson and his Barbary pirates. Magellan.
You never shoot us down
or have us write the date out in the margin.
Dates, as you say, are strictly historical.
But since you’re a stickler for observation, sir,
there’s something we’ve detected lately
in the sources of your person,
the way you drift at the whiteboard, penless,
starboard from centre
spinning your Age of Exploration globe until it slows to the brink of inertia,
before resting a palm on its surface.
And what about your sudden, unexplained aversion
to celebrity historians? We’ve no time for jealousy, sir;
you know we like a documentary.
And this tourettes you’re developing
- strictly ornithological
but nonetheless inappropriate -
declaiming every passing chiffchaff, robin,
each red kite shadow on the lawn circling, apparently, in perpetuity?
Perhaps you should consider changing classrooms.
It’s birdless in geography.
In short, sir, we’re concerned
you’re becoming that teacher you talk about,
the rogue protagonist in Waterland
lecturing his classes not in history, not strictly,
but in identity, the tension between silt and sea
between sanity and legacy. That one morning you’ll enter
as ever, slapdash, slightly late, and simply spin and spin
until the old globe dizzies on its axis.
