Friday Afternoon Requiem

for Robert Zimmerman

I hope Bob Dylan dies ona sunny Friday afternoon in October,say three o’clock or so, whenI’m looking for an excuse to stopgrading calculus tests. Upon gettingthe news, I’ll pack my things up, lockthe door to my windowless office, andhead out for the east side of campus,where I park my car.I’ll walk slowly beneaththe blue-diamond sky, thumbs hookedunder the shoulder straps of my heavybackpack; head up, squintingas my eyes adjustto the perfect tree-splintered lightthat arrives on Fridays in the fall.

I’ll take the long route, the onethat passes the dorms.I’ll hope to hear music driftingfrom open windows,maybe hear nineteen-year-oldboys shouting “how does it feel?” indrunken unison, maybe evencatch a whiff of marijuanaand revolution in the air.And no doubt I will be disappointedto find closed windows andclean air on oursmoke-free, revolution-free campus.

I’ll probably stopa group of students outwalking and talking excitedlyabout the upcoming football game.I’ll ask them if they knowthe Sage of Hibbing has left us.I’ll try to explain that he, like Nostradamus, knewall along what was goingto happen to them,happen to me,happen to everyone, everywhere.He excavatedall that is holy,all that is hollow,and laid lessons out in songlike shards of ancient potteryin a museum display case.

I suspect the students willjust back away slowly,start texting friends about theirafternoon encounterwith a crazy professor,and maybe, if theyare a bit curious, wonderwho Hibbing is.

And when I get to my caron that fateful afternoon,I’ll start it up, open allthe windows, turnthe stereo up goodand loud, let my storybe sung once again.And again I’ll wonderhow he knewthat some would indeedbecome mathematicians,and somewhere, somebecame carpenter’s wives,doing what they,what wedo with our lives,the piecesof broken pottery, separatedon a dark night,tangled upin our ownshades of blue.