My Captain! My Mentor: For Richard Adams Carey

O Captain! my Captain! our perilous road is done, With thoughtful checks and sound advice, my diploma is won.

Once tattered pages that I wrote with verb tenses shifting,

Once littered with stretched metaphors and constant misspellings;

But O my heart broke!

  O the cap was on my head,

     When I looked for my Captian’s eyes

He was home instead.

O Captain! my Captain! carefully read these lines; Know I have not forgotten every packet and each time

You helped me to see what would become my own writer’s path.

My weary mind rests, but soon I will need my mentor back;

My Captian! My mentor!

  And, if I may say, Friend?

    Conjur'r of words! Master of craft!

      My dream rests in your hands.

My Captain! Will you please answer? Say that you will?

My emails unopened, unread, making my heart stand still.

Who better to filter my prose until the task is done?

'Til our book is gathered and bound to be read by everyone;

Sound the trumpet! And ring the bells!

  This graduate bows her head,

    For O my Captain stays silent

      With my dream in his hands.