Scholar

Two contradictory currents pull
This strange intellect
That loves to string words together
Or pull apart them in analysis.

The one that loves to string words
In wild garlands of ecstasy,
Is silent and rarely present,
While the other mocks daily.

The one that pulls apart words,
To gather meanings and rules,
To make wild guesses at context,
Never comes when needed.

One voice of wild creativity
That has no rules at all;
One voice of scholarship
That finds boundaries hard.

So this life remains still,
With a journal serious trivial
That rarely ever records
The failures of the scholar.