Solitude’s Companions

Stillness settles over the university’s shoulders

at holiday break, after the students have left;

tree-trimmers, cleaners, sweepers come and gone;

pigeons and squirrels grow bolder;

campanile clangs for no one.

I have the Bounteous Mother almost to myself,

sharing only with a silent, smiling monk

and one green Gummi-Bear

lying forsaken on the sidewalk,
melting in the rain.




                                                                        Bobbi Dykema Katsanis