(In memoriam of Frank Reid)
With limpid blue eyes like the Shannon,
A fluency light as a breeze,
And a future in fluid dynamics,
He taught high school maths with great ease.
When squalls of his disengaged students
Would rail and storm without grace –
“What use will this be in the real world?” –
A smile rippled over his face.
Too few were enchanted by figures
He scrawled neatly over the board.
Perfection in letters and numbers
That, twinkling, he clearly adored.
Yet he taught us much more than equations,
For knowing that tempests would come
On our passage through homework and problems
He gave us a French rule of thumb:
“Allez en avant,” the directive,
“et la foi vous viendra,” it ends –
For faith does not sail in the morning,
But leaves dock when darkness descends;
When water is turbid and treacherous,
Or the ebb of the river runs dry,
Or a mast breaks and engines fall quiet,
Or the mist takes that edge from your eye.
The spirit of truth and of beauty
That led him so far from the shore
To dwell at the edge of creation
Could carry us far – to be sure.
I don’t blame the calculus questions
For drifting away in maths class;
Derivatives gave way to music –
I’m not sure I managed a pass.
But “Allez en avant” never left me,
“et la foi vous viendra” sets sail
In my heart as I stand at this ending
To face the sea salt and the gale.
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