A Letter To York College

A Letter

To York College

In 1967 I was two

and you showed me

what old is,

wind-chipped clapboard

houses,

brick sidewalks

and streets

and tall trees whose tops later

called me

to climb, to grow

giddy with swaying.

I marked the extent

of my reach

with a Barlow knife.

In a second floor office of your

oldest building,

winter outside,

I'm still a child here: centuries

have made

a wide grave of the

plains,

will bury me too.

It's time I extend

my grasp, look back

from a farther branch,

I see myself wearing thin

toward the marble's depth

of an epitaph,

and still,

so many trees

don't know my name.