The Geography Lesson
By Brian Patten
Our teacher told us one day he would leave
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to be.
The house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind's eye he could see
Sweet-smelling jasmine growing on the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.
He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never dull or cold.
I couldn't understand why he never left,
And shook off the school's tight hold.
Then halfway through his final term
he took ill and never returned.
He never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.
The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name forgotten, he faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.
I travel to where the green leaves burn,
To where the ocean's glass-clear and blue,
To places our teacher taught me to love—
And which he never knew.