On Coffee and College - Zora Ilunga-Reed

In a New England type of fog with

$2.50 coffee staining tongue and breath and the

Sound of archangels of learning from on high

Like so many clicking, whirring thoughts

I follow the masses of the hopeful into a place of study that looks a lot like one of worship.

Autumn doesn’t crunch when it’s damp

and humidity fluffs the hair and erases that Oxford-like

Chorus of Thought and Expression--

Truth, Light, walk umbrella-burdened backwards, guide the way.

If we are but blowin’ in the wind, says Bob Dylan so it must be true,

what is a tree-lined street and a spire

(Artificial, we’re told, he burned his own buildings to mark archaic)

and a clock with no face?

Rather, senior theses and pretentious eyebrows mark our path from cradle to grave

no matter the campus.

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Zora Ilunga-Reed is a junior at Stanford where she is studying Philosophy and Literature. She is a native New Yorker.