Emeritus

He cleans out the file and crams
the wastebasket with dog-eared hopes
stale as lecture notes and grade books.
He walks, from his desk to the door,
a path worn deep in time, turns the key—
a gardener at the end of his season.
He has worn his degrees like medals,
let them tarnish in the box of age.
He waves a brief hand at a bushy-tailed
young scholar busting his gut to find words
that will startle his first faculty meeting.