What Will I Teach For A Start Poem by RIC BASTASA

this semester is about to begin
another set of faces meet me in this
closed classroom, these students who swear
they want to be good lawyers

ambitious minds
their tongues in cheek
their mouths pocketing some
ancient motives
how to get rich quickly with the law on their fingertips
how to move ahead and pin the rest at dead-end streets
of their finicky, cunning, twist and turns of logic and
fraudulent flings


at their age of suspicion
they look at me with a scrutiny
this demi-god must teach
where the pot of gold lies where the rainbow ends
the map must be laid
the details verified correctly on the spot

the rules and exceptions
the exceptions to the exceptions
the laws of property and family relations

there is no law about who gets hurt
or who gets killed in the process
there is only the law of winning
the code of the loser is simply not found here

today, as an introduction
i will lay them the true cards of the study
for a start

everything starts with the rule on compassion
the code of humanity
the true law is love, and mercy and verisimilitude

the palimpsest shall be presented
i draw the shape of their hearts drenched with blood
they also must learn the value of hope
the art of patience
the devotion to the law
and fidelity to the truth

there shall be no disgust
no schemes to defeat the other by guile and ruses

i will teach love
and they may laugh for a while
afterwhich they can search some more
and be fragile like this white chalk
crumpling to the solid blackboard
questing for correct answers
this legal truth
from moral ones torn apart
in a wide chasm

by all means they can justify as the days go by
why they must love the law why they must be human too