Poem: On a Blackboard

Entering an empty classroom
Turning on the lights, I notice
White designs in chalk adorning
Planes of green, scholastic blackboards.

No-one's here, and no-one tells me
What they mean, the pictures drawn here,
What they mean, the words inscribed here,
No-one knows, and no-one tells me.

Strange, it is, the lack of meaning,
Lack of purpose, lack of value,
Strange, that all these words and symbols
Lack their truth without their writer.

Are all words so empty, worthless
When they are without their speakers?
When I write, is there no meaning
Other than for me, the writer?

As I read the absent teaching
Of a class I've never taken,
Only images and contours
Touch my mind to leave their traces.

Soon, my teacher comes, and students,
They'll erase the words and figures.
When they do, I'll feel the absence
Of a dozen words and figures.

I'll remember not their meaning
But their presence and their seeming.