The young wander
all across campus,
looking for their exam rooms.
“Excuse me, sir.
Do you know where this building is?”
He points to the map
issued by his school.
“I’m looking for…AC Jordan.
And Molecular Bio…whatever”
she laughs.
“Where can I find…RW James?”…
The queries come thick and fast
as the kids arrive
for their Olympiad.
Parents, too, seem lost,
asking where to get food.
And invigilators don’t know
how to get to their assigned buildings.
The campus is alive tonight:
high schoolers swarming across the plaza,
down the lanes,
and in every building –
trying to find their way.
Perhaps a prelude
to later studies here,
when the shackles of constriction
will be thrown off,
and freedom reigns
in the prime years of their lives.
And they’ll know the buildings then.
And they won’t have to ask.
For this mere quiz will seem
a rudimentary task,
as essays and tests,
assignments and exams,
cloud their consciousness,
as they wish
for a return
to the simplicity of high school.
Elsewhere, university students waltz
in a ballroom dancing class,
while an elderly couple watches on…
perhaps recalling
days of youth,
when their bodies were so limber.
Others sit in the library,
studying
or reading
or watching…
perhaps the only place of solitude
amidst dorm rooms and halls
which they’d otherwise be confined to.
~~~
Come with me
to the top of the world.
Where shimmering lights twinkle,
a sea of luminosity
below the cold, grey night sky.
Bay to the left,
water so cold.
Waves crashing in dark silence.
A site to behold.
Surrounded by civilization.
Buildings and highways,
the cars go back and forth.
Like blood through veins
which connect our city:
north to south,
east to west.
I remember these sights
from childhood night drives.
Orange lights lining the highway,
from source to destination,
journeys under the cloak of darkness.
This vantage point spectacular,
a bird’s eye view.
Balm for the soul…
visions anew.
~~
Back on earth,
smatterings of conversations assault the ears.
Idle talk
as parents wait
for their younglings inside.
I wander past the building
where my first year orientation was held.
A hot day in February,
as my anxious 18-year old self arrived,
and saw faces from the past
who were familiar –
but never friends.
Fresh out of high school,
our new adventure was to begin.
After the welcome in the lecture theatre,
we sat on the grass outside in a circle.
Ice breakers and introductions,
the birth of new bonds.
But for me,
there was none.
No kindred spirit to find my heart.
And in the weeks that followed,
I tried to find one.
Socially awkward,
terrified inside,
I attempted to reach out…
Something so out of my comfort zone,
yet I failed.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe they didn’t care
to reciprocate.
I’ll never know…
All I do know,
is that it was the most alone
I’d ever felt.
And in the four years that followed,
still not a friend in sight.
I grew accustomed to hiding,
nobody knew my plight.
But those days are gone.
The years rolled by.
And I stand here,
decades later,
all grown up.
So different,
yet somehow the same.
Insecurities still haunt me.
Social fears remain…
A smorgasbord of thoughts that flowed on a very rare night visit to my university campus two weeks ago.
slip-sliding away..... 