After The Boston Conference Poem by Linda Hepner

The hotel's empty now and all the scholars
hailing, talking, arguing and drinking wine,
have gone home laden with new books but dollars
missing from their pockets, while alone online
I try to recreate the clamor, bustle:
far off colleagues meeting after many years,
papers read, then sorted with the rustle
that's meant to ward off questions flung like sharpened spears
and still outside the doors the scholars slap
eachother's backs and probe with glee the damnest queries
about their publishers and then they wrap
up all their thoughts by smirking when they quote the theories
of their rivals, though when quoting theirs
they wait for praise - that's why a scholar shares!


(After the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) conference - Boston)