To Teach a Literature Class

To Teach A Literature Class

All my life

I have burned with the desire to

Know your knowledge

and

Word your wisdom.

O Literature,

How I pursued you

Barefoot,

Only to see you moving

Farther away.

What have I not risked?

Where have I not searched?

Speaking of you to every speck

Why this endless mirage?

In a world that

Walks over the soul,

I wished only

Your presence.

Starving or homeless

Half-naked, fully-ridiculed

Always enslaved by

Your bewitching prophecy

With only one desire -

To teach a literature class

Forever and ever

In this life 

And the next.

-       From ‘A Poet’s Promise’ by Rositta Joseph, Black Eagle Books, USA, 2025