Monday came, and I’d done nothing about the professor. But I kept thinking about her. Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, after writing out the lines I’d agonized over all morning on a plain white card, I took personal time, and headed for her office. According to the university class schedule, she was there. I hoped she was.
I made a stop. The flowers were roses, and real, and very expensive. I didn’t care.
The university’s gates accepted my NetPrime ID. I had to ask directions to the Fine Arts building, but I managed to find it.
When I got near her office, I could hear someone singing. Then the singing stopped, and resumed, and stopped again. I didn’t know too much, but she was clearly giving a lesson. So I found a bench a ways down the hall and sat down. My palms were damp.
Was I insane? No…life was too short, and the beauty of words alone, even the words of the Irishman, was not enough. Words needed song for full expression.
After about fifteen minutes, a student emerged. She walked slowly.
I waited a moment, and then hurried to the door, keeping the flowers behind my back as I knocked.
“Yes?”
“Ah…this is Jude Parsfal. I…have something for you.”
After what seemed an endless moment, the office door opened. She stood there, her silver-gray eyes somber, yet dancing. Then she twitched her head slightly, and flipped back a few errant strands of that mahogany hair deftly.
“These are for you.” I handed her the bouquet of yellow roses. “They’re real hothouse roses. Not formulated.”
The professor’s mouth opened. “Why…?” She looked at me quizzically, perhaps even appalled.
“Ah…I’m not…well…” I handed her the card that went with the roses. I watched as she read the words I’d written for her.
No wind whispers, disturbs your fingers,
perfect hands where perfection lingers.
Your unsung song spins in my mind
seeking words I still cannot find.
I watched after others did you wrong,
and never heard your favored song,
yet scarce can find the strength to bring
strong warm words for you to sing.
So these flowers do I proffer
as but gesture, beginning offer.
She looked up, a faint smile on her face, a smile that could have meant anything.
“I know,” I said hurriedly. “It’s not good poetry, and you don’t even know me, except through a few interviews. It’s not like Yeats and his gong-tormented sea. But…I wanted it to be about now and you, and not the misty past. And…I didn’t want to just let you sing for people who didn’t care, except that you were a decoration.” I paused. “We might have a chance to be more than hired help. Newsie researchers are hired help, too.” I stopped. I was talking far too much.
She smiled. It looked like more than a professional expression. “I’m still hired help. I have to do a rezad in less than an hour. Would you like to come with me? We could go somewhere afterward for something to eat, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Mind? “I’d be delighted. Thank you.”
“Thank you. Let me get my shawl.”
Somehow that was fitting—a singer with a shawl.
I couldn’t speak poet’s words. All I could do was smile back. It was enough.