Seared In Memory

Her voice numb with glum
resentment makes me cringe in
sympathy searching within that
cavern of youthful misery some sign
her usual cheerfulness has not entirely
forsaken her. Grim with procrastinating
conscience and the awful telescoping
of allotted time, she utters her
despairing phrases of condemnation:
teachers, subject, curricula, exam,
and oh yes, dread. I remind her when
she wails what a waste the entire
exercise of learning by rote seems to
her, of how well she trained her
memory back in grade school, to
faultlessly recite her favourite
Robert Louis Stevenson poem, and
finally, a rueful laugh. And the admission
that she now recalls every word, 
scored faultlessly into her memory bank
proving, I tell her, that nothing is
gained but by effort, and no knowledge
is ever a waste. Another laugh in
recall of that performance so long
ago when recall failed beyond the 
first two stanzas and she remained
there, frozen in mortification, and it is
that which was seared into memory.