Matronly Mentor
Delphic Sibyl of Annisquam
By: Charles Giuliano - Nov 28, 2016
Matronly Mentor
Debbie was my friend
Rancid adolescence
My face exploding
Embarrassing volcanoes
Head awash in ideas
Randy loins
Liked her mother more
Regal Mrs. Gardner
British born
Delphic Sybil
That lilting language
Redolent of class
Always reading
Home alone
When I went calling
Allegedly for her daughter
Neglectful husband
Rarely there
Stiff and proper
Venerable Yankee
Worked for IBM
Which seemed strange
Why would one
Spend their life
With business machines
More interesting things to do
Come in she would say
Offering her cold root beer
Home-made rarest treat
For a summer's day
Always a topic
Introduced she would say
Now Charles my dear
Curled up on the couch
Why are you studying Latin
Never thought of that
One just did
Labored through Caesar
Veni, vidi, vici
Then Cicero to Virgil
Catullus and the poets
Touch of Horace
You can't speak it
She argued
So what's the use
Stammered something
What I had been told
Ineptly rephrased
So in awe of her
Wit and wisdom
Hoping to please
Perhaps impress
So withered by our
Astute dialectics
Such delicious memory
Like that sweet beverage
Scion of Norwood Heights
Decades later I would tell her
Wish I paid more attention
To my Latin
Now desperately reading
Their fecund prose
Root of all syntax
Replete with wisdom
Insights of Empire
Rotting like a fish
From the head down
How like our own
Pining for Republic
Stoic noble Patricians
Or our founding fathers
Flawed indeed
Scamps and scoundrels
Seeking knowledge of
A decadent past
Now repeated
Through text
Retracing the steps
Such as it was
So shall it be