Simple wins the War

I sat in English class today
discussing The Red Wheelbarrow
as in, they who don't know my name
talked, and I looked out the window

for a moment.
Grey sky outside, blooming in me
softness and joy of belonging
at home with family in the winter evening
with stovetops and cushions and sleeping through the end
of a movie.

I saw grey sky and a red jacket bent over;
an old man with white hair
moving slower than I would
to the brick built theater building.

such soft joy filled the english class then
so much depends upon
the simplicities of life

it took him two minutes to write
The Red Wheelbarrow.
I like the reading best
that says so much depends upon beauty,
and so much depends upon
seeing old men in the fall
in the middle of entangling discussions of a
poem.