Starting this notebook; an apology

I didn't really take you in,

Nor think, even, of using you.

Are you my mother's gift or Clem's?

And are you pleased to find your pen?


You child of French Ornate Slim Notes,

You'll find a strange marriage I think.

Here sight fluctuates from the screen,

Here musk disturbs the radio,

Here clouds are oldest warmest friends:

They do not mock as shining things.


And I will grant you many grooms,

Identical, fickle and cheap,

They'll bite your pulp 'till worn out by their gnaw.

You can't rely, though, on these staging rules.


Not even at the start of term -

You will not bear Virginia's annals,

You'll have to learn Conjugia's weird tropes.

We will not learn together.

We'll get on.