Poem du jour

You Go to School to Learn
- by Thomas Lux from New & Selected Poems

You go to school to learn to read and add,
to someday make some money.
It—money—makes sense:
you need a better tractor,
an addition to the gameroom,
you prefer to buy your beancurd by the barrel.
There's no other way to get the goods you need.
Besides, it keeps people busyworking—for it.
It's sensible and, therefore, you go to school to learn
(and the teacher,having learned, gets paid to teach you) how to get it.
Fine. But:you're taught away from poetry or, say,
dancing (That's nice, dear, but there's no dough in it).
No poem ever bought a hamburger, or not too many.
It's true,and so, every morning—it's still dark!—you see them,
the children, like angels being marched off to execution,or banks.
Their bodies luminous in headlights. Going to school.