The man at left is poet Frank Bidart. I love his work. I was lucky enough to have had Frank as a teacher at Brandeis University back in the 1980's. He taught a class on modern poetry, and he had a lot of personal stories to add that I probably didn't appreciate at the time. What I always appreciated, however, was Bidart's spot-on observations of life's details.
Adolescence is a time of incredible self-doubt, of course. Yet at the same time, there's a feeling of invincibility and smugness, and adults are both confounded by it as well as jealous of it. Bidart captures all of this in "Adolescence." Enjoy.
Adolescence by Frank Bidart
He stared up into my eyes with a look
I can almost see now.
He had that look in his eyes
that bore right into mine.
I could sense that he knew I was
envious of what he was doing—; and knew that I'd
always wish I had known at the time
what he was doing was something I'd always
crave in later life, just as he did.
He was enjoying what he was doing.
The look was one of pure rapture.
He was gloating. He knew.
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I can almost see now.
He had that look in his eyes
that bore right into mine.
I could sense that he knew I was
envious of what he was doing—; and knew that I'd
always wish I had known at the time
what he was doing was something I'd always
crave in later life, just as he did.
He was enjoying what he was doing.
The look was one of pure rapture.
He was gloating. He knew.
I still remember his look.
The round-up today is at Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup.