My Oxford Year

My dissertation was on In Memoriam, the grief poems. I was looking at one of Tennyson’s rather specific physical details and how it might have affected his poetry.”

Surface tension.

His eyes continue to bore into mine. I hear myself say, “How does it make you feel?”

For the briefest of seconds his eyes drop to my mouth before they blink back to my eyes. “Hopeful.”

I can’t stop swimming in those pools.

We’ve told each other what we think, but we’ve no idea what we feel. That requires a conversation. Having words, having language, to connect us to ourselves and each other.”

I see he’s shuffling papers again and biting his bottom lip, as if to keep from smiling. Someone brushes past me into the classroom.

Please, I understand if this apology comes as too little too late, and I have no expectation of forgiveness, nor do I, arguably, deserve it, but do know that I acted without malice and my idiocy was nothing more than that. Sheer idiocy. You simply got tangled up in it. It was, invariably, an act of treason against my own better judgment, and . . . well,” he concludes. “There it is.”

I’ve got nothing. I was sure I’d have the perfect, cutting retort, but that was a Mr. Darcy–caliber speech. Not to mention his voice makes me feel as if I’m lying in a hammock. He’s waiting for my response. I’m having trouble talking.

This isn’t happening. She was my Oxford destiny, my Gandalf, my Mr. Miyagi, my whatever-Robin-Williams’s-Character’s-Name-Was-in-Dead-Poets-Society. What does she mean she’s not teaching?

Love well those who are dying, so that they may die in love.

Hearing her words, as she speaks to you, you think and feel certain things. Just as, hearing my words now, you think and feel certain things. Reading poetry is a conversation of feeling between two people. It shouldn’t answer anything, it should only create more questions, like any good conversation. What did she make you feel?

A poem is alive, it has a voice. It is a person. Who are they? Why are they?”

Jamie swallows, looking like all the blood has left his body.