Saraswati is the Hindu Goddess of leaming, knowledge, and wisdom. She is worshipped by persons interested in knowledge; students, teachers and scholars of all kinds. The following is a tribute to her by one such disciple.

Sing

I sing of words misspelled the unpunctuated clause the unspaced line that runs like ancient Latin on and on…

sing

I sing the sting of spelling bee’s the impending doom of great beginnings the stub of chalk that will not talk it’s way across the waiting slate the whispered slights behind the back the D that stands for dummy hotter then Hester’s shameful letter blushing red upon the cheek

sing

I sing of eyes that stutter slow across the page that snag upon the shoal of silent E’s the inside joke of X that sounds like Z unsounded letters that lurk like waiting sharks below the inky waves of papers bone white sea

sing

I sing of childhood taunts the mock we took for granted of quiet boys chose last for teams that grow up into men, who laugh too loud while pointing out their flaws before others have a chance to see.

sing

I sing of mouths that move the silent word to sound amplifying every vowel as we read

The heroic failures, we Who bravely try again to ply the pen to page breaking every law as we go down spelling the world the way it ought to sound writing out our lives phonetically the way we did before old Webster bade us sing like he!

(Poetry by Dane O'Hara)