from Morning in Middleborough... (Poems 1991-2006)

 

                     Epistle from the Abyss

A Letter from Professor John Whipple Potter Jenks

              to the Denizens of Middleborough

 

Dear Sirs and Mesdames, as the case may be,

I have been asked to pen an epistle

from the abyss to which we all must pass

where truth becomes the only thing we know,

regarding certain matters of concern

to the denizens of Middleborough.

Oh, what a peaceful haven was this town

when I arrived there many years ago

a callow youth just through the college gates

hoping to find a purpose for my life,

and so I labored zealously each day

to make the Peirce Academy a place

like those established in the ancient world

where knowledge was a treasure to pursue,

and reason was the final test of truth

for those who would direct the living line

from swamp to shining city on the hill.

I built a structure, and I molded minds.

Now both have had their time and are no more,

the minds passing into the gloomy mist,

the structure turned to rubble where it stood,

and that is the concern of this letter,

as I have been asked to comment upon

the razing of this temple of knowledge

to clear some space for another building,

but I am getting ahead of myself.

Before opining on this edifice

and what it meant when they tore it apart,

I must digress a bit about the past.

 

For thirty years I served as principal

of the academy on Center Street

with its row of simple Doric columns,

its pediments and walls of humble wood,

painted and shaped as if of marble made,

a touch of Athens in this country town.

The children came from near and far to learn.

I can see them arriving in the fall

shuffling through drifts of elm leaves on the walks,

so eager and a little bit afraid,

and we exposed them to basic knowledge,

history, mathematics and science,

works in English and the classical tongues.

Sometimes the students came to Tucker House

for tea and pastries in the afternoon

and to see the beauty of the gardens

where my oft-noted telescope was kept,

ladies and gentlemen soon to become,

preparing for the great challenge ahead.

By springtime when grape hyacinths appeared,

it was wondrous how much they had matured.

Then they departed before summer came,

leaving buildings vacant until the fall,

the seniors starting a new stage of life,

brimful with their learning and ideals.

Now all are gone leaving but little trace,

those youthful faces I can yet recall,

spending long days alone in some churchyard,

beneath a weather-beaten slab of slate,

and with a few sweeps of the wrecking ball

the academy was reduced to waste,

tearing a thread reaching back to the dawn,

replaced by a post office I am told,

and where Tucker House once adorned Main Street,

a commercial building now blights the scene,

this place since boarded up and abandoned.

 

After leaving your fair acropolis,

deciding I had done all I could do,

I went to Brown in nearby Providence

to head their zoology department.

During the summers I would roam about

collecting specimens on my travels.

These I kept in a wooden display case

where they were safe and could be examined.

In autumn, there were classes to be taught,

the students older and more confident.

One gray November day we assembled

on the granite steps of Rhode Island Hall,

which is still standing, I am pleased to say,

me very serious in my top hat,

my students in white shirts and black frock coats,

holding projects from taxidermy class,

a moment frozen by a photograph.