The sky-water leapt away

 

The palm trees shone, the streets grew balmy

 

Heavy with the the long stretch to June

 

Everything seemed laden with futility--

 

The world pregnant with woes,

 

 

 

Waiting, always, for the labor of hope

 

Months in a drench of sweat

 

 

 

Days spent-- a machine-- in testing rooms

 

SAT, ACT, Subject Tests-- watch the money

 

And the dreams drop slowly into the hungry maws of corporation

 

A fiery sun kisses the astroturf, and the little rubber crumbs grow squishy beneath heels

 

Pomp and Circumstance like a scratched record, the band slaves away-- with me

 

 

 

Hair in the wind, mingling with swampy meadows

 

 

 

The bright, singing sky caught in a rearview mirror

 

Boots squelch, perspiration beads

 

 

 

I blink, and the vision is gone

 

I seem bound to the computer--

 

 

 

Bound to the desperate cry of college!

 

The rains wash away dirt from the sidewalks,

 

 

 

And I see now--

 

There is no arrival of hope, or change, or future.

 

 

 

 

It is every day, bound into the framework of life

 

Woven into us