Seeing the Unseen
In honor of Professor Frank Winkler
on his retirement
Professor, friend, our class’s true
astronomer, whom a blackboard can’t
erase. Who’s taken us beyond the seen,
and unseen stars. Where space is
anybody’s second guess. Where,
it seems, we’re more and less
and everything that matters.
Who uses up three boards to write
love’s infinite sign, the feeling
today in your, in our last class,
that can’t be canceled out, that
remains a constant one.
Not by chance, your name, Frank
Winkler, has us winking at
the stars, those burning gases
it takes more than this semester
to reach us. Years from now,
maybe from another galaxy,
one of us will look back to earth—
you taught us we’re made up
of everything there is
(Did I get that right on the test?)
To look back and see the comet’s
trace of you jetting across
Bi-Centennial Hall’s grand
space. See you dropping
that bowling ball, near my
roommate’s, First Year foot,
to show us the principle by which
we’ve come to be love’s
first gravity. So, Professor,
at the end of this hour, we can
stand, we can fall back to Earth.
Gary Margolis ‘67
Executive Director, Emeritus,
College Mental Health Services
Associate Professor (part-time)
English and American Literatures