Why Latin Should Still Be Taught in High School

    Because one day I grew so bored

    with Lucretius， I fell in love

    with the one object that seemed to be stationary，

    the sleeping kid two rows up，

    the appealing squalor of his drooping socks.

    While the author of De Rerum Natura was making fun

    of those who fear the steep way and lose the truth，

    I was studying the unruly hairs on Peter Diamond‘s right leg.

    Titus Lucretius Caro labored， dactyl by dactyl

    to convince our Latin IV class of the atomic

    composition of smoke and dew，

    and I tried to make sense of a boy‘s ankles，

    the calves‘ intriguing

    resiliency， the integrity to the shank，

    the solid geometry of my classmate‘s body.

    Light falling through blinds，

    a bee flinging itself into a flower，

    a seemingly infinite set of texts

    to translate and now this particular configuration of atoms

    who was given a name at birth，

    Peter Diamond， and sat two rows in front of me，

    his long arms， his legs that like Lucretius‘s hexameters

    seemed to go on forever， all this hurly-burly

    of matter that had the goodness to settle

    long enough to make a body

    so fascinating it got me

    through fifty-five minutes

    of the nature of things.