Summer Break / by Brian Kunde

Summer Break
by Brian Kunde

Between terms
Stanford is quiet again,
at least indoors.
Students are away,
and those
dependent on them
for routine labor
must do without.

Staffers, in dread
of seeing patrons
dwindle to a trickle,
scramble to schedule
excess vacation time.
Those left rest
in the quiet before
the deluge.

Outside, excitement!
Hoover Menaced
by Giant Crane!
Campus Drive
is chewed up,
regurgitated
into a nice, new
boulevard
confined by curbs.

Residences are gulags
of new construction,
locked inside
chain fences—
White Plaza,
a trenched battleground
of machines delving
for lost pipes.

Language Corner,
tooth-pillars
knocked out
by seismic dentists,
wobbles
on wooden pallets,
while men like mice
skitter across
the bones of its roof
to reflesh it
in plywood.

All rush
to finish by fall,
hoping to show
returning students
and parents
a Stanford pristine,
free of scaffolding,
and trenches,
and machinery.

But none of this
extends inside.
Nor does
the quiet within
reach out.
Not till fall,
when the breeze
breathes softly
through the oaks,
unimpeded
by the din
of machines,
and the deluge
moves indoors.

* * * * *

Summer Break

from Adrift in the Wreckage : Poems, 1st ed., Dec. 2011.
Earlier versions appeared in
SUL News Notes v. 4, no. 36, Sep. 15, 1995 (as “Between Terms”)
and The Fleabonnet Poetry Collection, Dec. 29, 1995.

1st web edition posted 12/29/1995 (last updated 1/25/1996).
2nd web edition posted 3/13/1998 (last updated 2/15/2000).
3rd web edition posted 1/6/2012.