after Seamus Heaney
Where the building straddled the lake,
where students took their ease in winter,
where the algae scummed the surface,
around the corner from the cafeteria
where I mistook a black olive for a grape,
I had the first intimations of the wonder
that wracked my decades then departed.
Before doubt, before jittery hours, before
the heart curdled, I stood on concrete,
watched the ducks push the muck around,
inhaled the reek, and the weight of the
unknown settled. A marvel then,
a consternation now, if still marvelous at times.
A tattered mantle I’ve yet to fully lay aside.
Dan Hawkins is a poet and librarian from North Carolina living in South Carolina.