Flowers budding off the page,
curlicue swirls in margins,
words interspersed with scribbles,
drawings fit for the wall.

That’s what teachers collected,
but not with a smiling face,
for doodling was called inattention,
and as such, considered poor taste.

But research has since been conducted,
and as strange as it is to believe,
attention is often enhanced,
if we’re doodling while listening at length.

Now they’ve taken something intrinsic,
labeled it teachable art, produced
hundreds of books and videos
illustrating just how it should be.

But it’s like my tennis game,
learned entirely on my own;
when I took lessons from the masters,
I fell flat, not making the score.

If there’s a lesson to be learned here,
it’s to have faith in what you know,
and passionately doodle away
while listening to what you don’t know.