YOU

but who are you ... I know who I am when I'm in the student's place ... and I know where I'm going ... from this vantage point looking back all those years to the ten-year old I know what he's looking at ... I can still see the attraction ... I see now the chaotic mash of material we grew through from five to thirteen and the slow institution of order we realized incrementally painfully but surely ... by the natural appeal of that order the question and the answer ... the matter the form the appeal drawing each of us on ... the agency the push that I thought was mine alone ... the glide along the form of the question to the answer could be clever and smooth but I see now there was more than form to it ... and more than technique ... there was grace ... from the first question to the final answer there was more than effort and style ... the answer beckoned ... the form mapped the route ... the effort climbed the ladder ... but all the long way from start to finish the middle ground the middle ground was you ... alpha and omega and each iota through ... the spirit the spirit of it all was you