To Understand You Poem by RIC BASTASA

it is like i am studying a new subject matter
to teach for another semester because that old professor died
cancer of the prostate and i am the substitute,
it is time consuming, but for lack of will to refuse
i am back again to something that i hate,
to begin, to read what i have long forgotten,
remembering is always painful, there were less happy days to reckon with,

you, i have long dropped the idea of this dead tree
growing leaves again, roots not deeply rooted, the bark coming out,
but this is an obligation, to be with

you, again, to live in a house where life nests
time, where the ought becomes a code,
as i open the pages for my study, i stopped and think of other ways to really understand

you, i gazed at the ceiling and then shifted my strategy to the floor,
something flashes,
i must start at the end, and then go back
to that previous poem.