Ode To A Scholar

Cadieux was a scholar
In a small, Northeastern town
Groomed in an Adirondack holler
Far from city folk

Despite his narrow circle
Of relatives and friends
He grew to be a master
Of the civilized tongue

Strong hands cradled a text
Now bound for two hundred years
It's words and rhythms still as piquant
As though they were freshly penned

"The class will come to order;
Please be seated
I'll begin with
Keats' Hyperion...
Augustin, will you read?"

Cadieux loved the flow of words
Like the notes of a stirring toccata
Privately interpreted in the minds' eye

From his schoolroom he commanded the oceans
To crash on a hundred wild shores or,
Lead his intrepid band of warriors
Into the fray with Roosevelte's dashing
Rough Riders

"Lionel, tend the fire, will you?"
Harsh words were not required
To affect a loyal response
Strict discipline was garnered
With mutual respect

His peers found his style archaic at times
Notwithstanding they approved;
To be sure, his budding students
Scored the highest in the school





Some say his father died alone
In a village far away
Roused by passions too great to still
He sought the Foreign Legion's door

Cadieux was a man by then
With a wife and child of his own
He had kept the letters received
From a bloody civil war:

"My son, I hope I find you well;
How are Marian and Chance?
I miss your Mother also;
She loved the south of France."

"It may be awhile before I write again
Damn these drunken sods
The cannon are clearing their lungs to-night
As are the wounded and dying."

"Be vigilant in your path
Stray neither left nor right
I love you son
Farewell."

He always planned to visit
The simple granite cross
In a windswept field that overlooks
A rocky, Scottish coast





Some would opine his legacy is scant
Cold dishwater thrown on a heated world
Embroiled in strife, and burdened
With the poor and needy

Yet I demur

Appraising the lineage he begat
Borne of meter, verse, and rhyme
His pupils were adopted into that dusty realm
Introduced to the likes of Shakespeare, Aurelius
And Descartes

Unknown to the modern world
His spirit yet remains
In the generations he taught to mine
The richest literary veins