Impressions of a
Campus:
A Movement in Three Sonnets
I.
Time here is timeless, and the hours creep
Or fly, as I require. I can spend
The lazy time here, dreaming half-asleep
Upon the garden bench. Few others wend
Their way between these hedges; I alone
Must know a kinship here. A certain air
Of fantasy pervades it, though no stone
Embankments guard this hidden fairy square.
This garden as its lord one Shakespeare has,
And planted in his tribute here do flower
Ophelia's rosemary, love-in-idleness
For Puck, the verdure of Titania's bower.
Time here is timeless; truly, for I know
A place where wild thyme again may blow.
II.
Time here is timeless, basking on a rock
Ten feet above the water's jagged edge;
This isolation but ten minutes' walk
Along the shaded pavement, to the ledge
Of titan boulders bordering the lake,
From some more concrete, ordered world. The time
I spend out here, alone, and free to take
My thoughts at leisure, justifies the climb.
I feel the water's pulse, the soothing rays,
Pervade my spirit. I am peaceful now
As I have rarely been through all my days,
Yet would have sought to be, had I known how.
Time here is timeless; underneath the sun
All aspects of my being are as one.
III.
Time here is timeless; I could spend a year
Exploring every sidewalk, beach, and trail,
And never feel it pass. Each moment dear
Suspends itself in this fair nature's vale.
These halls of learning, though, are what intrigue;
I long for challenge and society
At levels yet untapped. Despite a league
Of efforts, I have stretched my entirety
Here only. How I dread to bid farewell
To this, my new existence! But inside,
The changes are for ever; I can tell
My new maturity, or strength, or pride.
Time here is timeless; elsewhere, it moves on.
I may return when other years have gone.
January 1986
Copyright ©1999 by Erica Schultz Yakovetz. All rights reserved.