by Zary Fekete<\/p>\n
The sun setting across the campus mall was too tempting to resist, and Gaspar snapped a few pictures. A strong sense of promise swept over him. He held the mental impossibility in his mind: that this sunset in Budapest was the same as the one falling across his small village on the eastern frontier. His father\u2019s words echoed in his thoughts, The first to college from a family of farmers. I can\u2019t read, and you\u2019re writing poems. Proud of you, boy.<\/em>\u00a0 He shouldered his backpack, and turned toward the library. A snap of wind caught him just as he entered the double glass doors, and the sudden warmth and settled quiet of the building\u2019s lobby was a pleasant change from the bluster of the outdoors.<\/p>\n He threaded his way through the stacks of shelves until he arrived at his favorite table in the poetry section. The library would still be open for three hours, but because it was a Friday, the building was largely deserted. Most of the students were back in their dorms or already out on the streets, dipping into the weekend social life. Gaspar took out his laptop and the poetry anthology he had been pouring over during the afternoon. Back in his dorm room he had already picked the poem for the weekend assignment. The trip to the library was for a change of scenery before he started to write.<\/p>\n He thought about the first time he realized what poetry was. The priest in the small village church had read from the Bible one Sunday when he was in elementary school. The voice of the father had echoed, \u201cI waited patiently for the\u00a0Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.\u201d He approached the older man after the service.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Book of Proverbs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWas it poetry?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0The priest thought for a moment. \u201cSomething like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Gaspar looked around him in the quiet library. The poetry books surrounded him on the many shelves. The same words, <\/em>he thought. <\/em>Different authors. Different times. But the same humanity. It was as though a channel through time connected them all. The same sunshine.<\/em><\/p>\n He opened the poetry book but paused. Footsteps approached. He looked up, and immediately glanced back down at the page with a feeling of guilty pleasure. It was his poetry professor, an elderly man with a wave of white hair, messy in the best of times, and this evening positively in shambles. The man was still wearing a coat, his nose dipped down as he pondered an open book he held in his hands, oblivious to Gaspar\u2019s presence. He sat down at the table next to Gaspar.<\/p>\n Gaspar sat quietly, not quite sure if he ought to stay at the table for fear of disrupting the professor\u2019s reading with his typing. He had made up his mind to move to a different place when the elderly man looked up and noticed him. His wrinkled face broke into a smile while nodding his head at Gaspar\u2019s laptop.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess we both have nothing better to do tonight,\u201d he said, lifting his book. Gaspar squinted so he could read the small writing of the title, Haiku by Arai.<\/em><\/p>\n This was the first time the professor had spoken directly to him. The poetry class was fairly large for an upper-level course, over fifty students, and Gaspar had yet not had the chance to meet the professor in person. Most of the class participants were older than Gaspar. Some of them were PhD students, already working on their first or second personal poetry collection. He was only a freshman. He had been able to get in because one of his poems reached the finals in a national high school poetry contest and the judge wrote him a letter of commendation. Normally he would have felt embarrassed and uncertain what to say, but something about the quiet of the library and the special circumstances of their meeting gave him an extra twist of courage.<\/p>\n \u201cActually, I\u2019m working on the assignment for your class,\u201d Gaspar said, holding up the poetry anthology.<\/p>\n The professor\u2019s eyebrows went up. \u201cSorry, son,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t recognize you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo bother, sir,\u201d Gaspar said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big class.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is,\u201d the professor nodded. \u201cBigger this year than in the past. I should know. I have taught the course for\u2026\u201d he paused while he thought, \u201c\u2026thirty-three years now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWow,\u201d Gaspar said. \u201cLots of poems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d the older man said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be covering some Japanese poems next week. That\u2019s why I\u2019m trying to get a jump on it.\u201d He held up the book again.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve actually never read anything by Arai. Who is he?\u201d<\/p>\n The older man paused, choosing his words. \u201cAn obscure hokku writer. Not as famous as Basho, but he could have been. Great stuff here,\u201d the professor said. \u201cAnd these little pieces are tricky. I understand some. This one has me confused.\u201d<\/p>\n Gaspar leaned back in his chair. \u201cCould you read it, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHaven\u2019t I already given you enough work there?\u201d the older man chuckled. \u201cBut, yes, gladly.\u201d He nodded a few times while looking down at the page to find his place. \u201cHere it is\u2026<\/p>\n Rusty weeds<\/em><\/p>\n More dust on the way<\/em><\/p>\n A century of mothers<\/em><\/p>\n The professor looked up. \u201cSolid images,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026but I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Gaspar thought a moment and then said slowly. \u201cIt might be\u2026a birthday party?\u201d<\/p>\n The professor sat back in the chair, looking up into the air above him. A moment passed.<\/p>\n \u201cGo on,\u201d the older man said.<\/p>\n Jasper licked his lips, \u201cThe poet could be looking at the old family yard, full of dirty weeds. The extra dust in the air is from the arriving family members traveling down the gravel road, all coming to celebrate the grandmother\u2019s hundredth birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n A slow smile spread across the wrinkled face. The professor leafed back a few pages in the book. \u201cAh,\u201d he said. \u201cThat makes some sense. This is from the poet\u2019s biography: \u2018Arai came from an unusually large family for Japanese society of the 19th<\/sup> century. The ancestral homestead of the family remained a gathering place for the distant relatives year after year.\u2019\u201d The professor looked up. \u201cThat\u2019s what is miraculous about haiku,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat took this biographer several lumpy sentences to say, Arai got across in three lines. And\u2026\u201d he pointed at Gaspar, \u201c\u2026you gathered that in five seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n Gaspar felt words bubbling up within him. \u201cMaybe just a lucky guess,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I love it when that happens. I feel like only poetry can do that. It connects distant worlds and thoughts a couple of seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n A pleasant silence drifted by as they looked at each other.<\/p>\n \u201cNice work, son,\u201d the professor said. He stood up. \u201cI\u2019ll leave you to it.\u201d He turned but then paused. \u201cI have a special group that meets informally every few weeks to share our personal work. Care to join?\u201d<\/p>\n Gaspar\u2019s heart beat faster. \u201cI\u2019d love to, sir. Thank you!\u201d<\/p>\n The older man nodded and then disappeared among the bookshelves. Gaspar sat quietly for a moment. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his small Bible. He leafed through it and then found the spot he was looking for. Slowly he read the verse to himself.<\/p>\n Then he pulled out his diary and made a new entry: \u201cNovember 1, 2024. Met my professor. Ecclesiastes 11:7.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Zary Fekete The sun setting across the campus mall was too tempting to resist, and Gaspar snapped a few pictures. A strong sense of promise swept over him. He held the mental impossibility in his mind: that this sunset in Budapest was the same as the one falling across his small village on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1730,77],"tags":[1728,1123,1615],"class_list":["post-15560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-83","category-english","tag-egophobia-83","tag-english","tag-zary-fekete"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6DakB-sunshine","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15562,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15560\/revisions\/15562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}