'Tis traditional for a campus
To possess a center,
A great square of ground
Like a rectangular focus of the Universe
("We've discovered the shape of the singularity;
It remarkably resembles a campus quad").

Our campus in the mountains
Had buildings with two fronts:
One third floor, High Street,
One first floor, Main.
I remember nothing flat enough
To make a quad

Except the swamp beneath the highwall
Six miles out of town
Where the miners had removed
The front half of a mountain
Clean to the sulfurous base
Of the coal seam.

Thus, my education stands askew,
Focused always up-hill and down,
Poised between the inaccessible heights
And the narrow valleys
(To be avoided because the Mon River flooded often,
Washing all of value away).
 
 

5/2/2000

Index     The Terminal