Grieve and mourn here and now,
while their deaths tick ever closer,
though still some years away.
Take a week or two.
Use vacation time or sick leave.
Grieve. Mourn.
Do this right and you may begin
to love them both a little better
here, now,
while it matters most.
George J. Searles teaches English and Latin at Mohawk Valley Community College. Widely published, he is a former Carnegie Foundation New York State “Professor of the Year.”
A much-published academic,
Prof. Dennis Wrong was quite a guy.
Filled with truly shrewd polemic,
his several books rank pretty high.
Now this would be all well and fine
but for one point adamantine:
It was for years good ol’ Den’s plight
to be called Wrong though always right.
Author’s Note: Dennis Wrong (1923-2018) was a widely acclaimed NYU sociologist.
George J. Searles teaches English and Latin at Mohawk Valley Community College and has also taught for Pratt and The New School. The editor of Glimpse, a poetry magazine, he has published many poems in other small quarterlies, along with three volumes of literary criticism from university presses and eight editions of a widely used communications textbook. He is a former Carnegie Foundation New York State “Professor of the Year.”