A Poem for Life-Long Learners
My teacher wore paper clothes; I thought he was poor.
He must lack money for proper clothing, I thought.
He must have had some calamity befall him in another life, I wondered.
My teacher wore paper clothes; I thought she was proud.
She said they made her look powerful,
And that all men and women sang her praises because she wore them.
She still said this was the way for her to go —
The honourable flight with special paper wings, she said.
“Like the peacock, I don’t have to prove anything when I adorn these.”
My teacher wore paper clothes; I thought he was mad.
Even while they got soiled — matted with sweat in the heat like bad papier-mâché.
“It is hard work,” he comforted me.
“It is real hard work when you dress up.
It is hard work to work clad like this.
They will think you’re coo-coo, but that is because they don’t know better.
You do.”
My teacher wore paper clothes; I thought she was in pain.
I thought I could see her ribcage shuddering in the cold as the wind blew.
All that starchiness, all that dry roughness.
“That must itch,” I thought.
She must be in mourning, or braving some overstayed fast in plight of the divine,
Or lamenting for all that the world hasn’t done in following her instruction.
My teacher wore paper clothes; I thought he was wise.
He said they spoke for him when he entered a room.
He said these paper clothes proclaimed him smarter than anybody I knew.
He said I should thus trust him and let him show me the way —
The way of knowledge and the way to wear paper clothes.
My teacher said that I should wear paper clothes too.
She said they were the envy of the bystander.
She said they were a distinguishing mark of the thinker.
“No one will listen to you without paper clothes,” she stressed.
She said all of this was worth the box of sacrifices that were to be made.
She said I would learn what this meant once I earned my first suit of paper clothes.
My teacher said the first pair of paper clothes is not where I should end.
He said there were other paper clothes to gain if I proved myself again and again.
He said the number of paper clothes was the testament of one’s fortitude, and thus more and more I must attain.
I now wear paper clothes too.
I still get soaked and muddied when it rains, like my teacher.
But I am just as proud and strong-headed as he and she.
I have grown to love the scratchy feel of my attire and the elegantly blank promise of the many pages I adorn.
Mbunifu Bbumba,
Some time in 2022