Are we readers, students
Merely—or shall we be Seers?²
Scholars need to go outside and Sniff around—
Walk through the grass & talk to the animals.³
The words of the textbook creep off the pages,
Over the fingers, and sink straight into the Skin.⁴
Do not read any more—Look!
Do not look any more—Go!⁵
We live with the Unknown in front,
Always receding: a Vanishing moving over it all—⁶
Increase of Knowledge: augmentation of the
Complexity & intensity of intelligent life—
Enrichment of harmony and the great
Glory of God—Curiosity, Adventure, Delight!⁷
All you perceive, all you experience, all that is
Given or taken from you—all that you love or
Hate, need or fear Teaches you—if you will Learn.⁸
Set out, first, to Learn, second, to Learn, and third, to
Learn—and then see to it that learning does not remain
A dead letter or a fashionable catchphrase, but that
Learning becomes part of our very Being!⁹
No Contradiction can occur between
What a student Learns at school and
The reality of the Lives of the people.¹⁰
¹ Ethiopian Proverb
² Henry David Thoreau, Walden
³ Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
⁴ Zoe Robertson, Patty Perkins and the Poltergeist Plot
⁵ Paul Celan tr. Michael Hamburger, The Straitening
⁶ Jorie Graham, I’m Reading Your Mind
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
⁸ Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
⁹ Vladimir Lenin tr. Skvirsky & Hanna, Better Fewer, But Better
¹⁰ Tayeb Salih tr. Denys Johnson-Davies, Seasons of Migration to the North