My Grasshopper Learned Calculus
The name given by an elder monk with failed eyesight,
Master Po, to his younger aspiring monk, patience
often the lesson. You need to hear to be able to see,
he said. That takes time. One Christmas, my father,
who had not heard of Master Po, asked me, in essence,
to be that elder monk to my younger brother on the verge
of failing freshman calculus. Why me? I asked.
You’re the professor. Because you need to learn patience,
he said. You have a week. In that time, I listened
carefully and painstakingly guided my grasshopper
through the semester’s course work. He returned to college
and earned an A on his final. But now, my father long gone,
my brother a success, I am still learning patience,
fifty years not long enough. Calculus was much easier.
Down Here On Earth
Mid-December, lakes and ponds frozen over
early this year, Canada geese late to
organize their voyage south, their honking
louder as more and more V-formations
unite to form a vast geometric
array overhead. Down here on earth,
we have learned how to honk at one another,
have trouble sharing a common purpose,
unable to join others from different flocks,
choosing instead to head on divergent paths,
like when a couple reaches a fork
and decides to continue their journey
apart, waking one day to see that what
bound them together got lost along the way.
Jim Tilley has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir, The Elegant Solution, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Billy Collins selected his poem, “On the Art of Patience,” to win Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize for Poetry. Four of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection, Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New & Selected Poems, was published in June 2024.