1940, 1970 and Today – plus other poems - 13. “To a Boy on a July Saturday”

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Poem No. 35

“To a Boy on a July Saturday”

concurrent with my reading of Plato’s Theaetetus

For just a moment seen –

a boy of real beauty

who studies alone

Sits like a god unknown –

among the sea of us

mediocrity.

The train goes noisily on around him,

but those eyes search over the faces,

not for a glimpse of their hopes or dreams,

but wanders to-and-fro to find out

the physics equations

he slowly puts to memory.

But there alive is he –

a little smile for

a code remembered

And the little smile –

he doesn't know I've seen;

doesn’t know it moves.

The train goes noisily on around him.

a perfect place for him to be alone,

unknowing the grace his eyes and lips

show the world all hard and unseeing;

but, there alive is he,

and not so in the car, but in me.

Eyes sincere and sweetly kind –

that will never seek me out

I'll bring to other times

For such beauty as yours –

is want in the lesser

moments of my life.

_