Michael Shepherd (8.4.1929 / Marton, Lancashire)

There's a nip in the air these days.
Time for self-improvement.
In evening class, some nights
will be fruitful, joyous, all you hoped.

Then there'll be nights when
a diligent student has a 'problem'...
could be a particular or worse, a general...

The class, who've been together
long enough to bond,
hasten to join him under that black cloud,
misleadingly shaped like an umbrella,
of his/her problem; we're not sure
exactly what that problem is;
but we all frown, look serious..
who would think that silence could be so heavy?

only natural landscape would describe it -
black cloud, boggy ground, slippery scree,
fog descending; where's the compass point?

the tutor's seen it many times before.
It's the underbelly of the learning curve
shaped more like shark than jellyfish..