when i shut my eyes

a crown of thorns flashed

as if a caution light

was signaling my life

read with any comprehension

he sat and could not read

with any comprehension

for his eyes fell tired

as his brain dried

thus ev'ry effort to read

fell dead between his knees

he could not read the letters

forming words before his eyes

but only chase them down

with each nod of his head

words as if foreign

incoherent as is smoke

paraded across his cranium

like ghosts pursuing ghosts

was he ignorant?

was he dumb?

his IQ often said No

but this afternoon in the library

he could not comprehend at all

*At eighteen I was plenty old enough to damn well know better than that.  And if it sounds like I've rendered a self-assessment far too harsh in light of my age, trust me, I haven't. I was wrong to embrace that crap. Spending  my impressionable years operating in the real world on such wishful thinking wasn't only too costly, it was also dangerous.  I well remember as a young man learning day by day to test my wings in life by stepping farther away from my ignorance.  Then one day, at a bold distance from the safety of that ignorance, I finally spotted my demons - first one, then another, then another.

-Sidney Poitier