No other has the ability to make one feel so fortune-blessed

As memory reels back to when you entered the room

To be greeted by the ungrateful chatter of indifferent undergraduates

I could understand then why you chose to admire for longer

The slanting beauty of the pyramidal Canary Wharf

Rather than to allow anger to be stirred with dignified blood

At the sight of insolent, unrelenting latecomers.

I did long that you'd know and appreciate

That I'd always be expectant, always yearning

Yet on the verge of regarding you as a mere trick of the eye:

Dumbstruck, joyfully blaming Heaven

For the mystical soul-renewing presence before me.

Entwined was the agony of never being privileged enough

To be shown all aspects of you.

Yet I still kept to the hope that I would go beyond the show

Beyond the comedy routines and absent-minded displays

And the guffaws echoing off walls.

I wished to elatedly confirm that your teaching did make sense

When you, considerate, did frequently ask for assurance.

But the reel of memories end

And leave a room darkened by the shackling of a soul

Denied future access to your prodigious school of thought

Nothing left but to pass the torch, to bless

The next ever willing dedication, the next birth of admiration.

Natasha Haidar © 2004