I wrote the following poem in 1999 for Jon Accarrino and all of our friends at Ithaca College. I was highly against electronic communication back then. Of course, now the very method of correspondence that I so adamantly refused to embrace is what has reconnected us all.
We should be lying on our backs in new-born grass like we did on that lazy afternoon in May between classes when Frisbees hovered over our heads and Spring sang just enough for us to see never-before-worn shorts and pastel sundresses peak through the Ithaca sky.
The air smelled of waterfalls and gorges, as we watched kids playing hackey and roller blade hockey on the pavement in the heart of campus, 10,000 staircases, and remnants of Midnight Scream.
Friends dropped by for a smoke and a joke, while skateboarders and liberal artists basked by the fountains.
62 degrees and already we felt the heat and anticipation of days without ass-crack-of-dawn alarms, lectures and bubble sheets.
So we looked up at the sun and talked about the future.
Speculation and laughter over who would get married first, and who would have children first, and who would have a nervous breakdown first.
My desire for closure was dismissed, since I would be back soon.
But your good-byes were real because the next time we’d meet you’d know what it was like to live in the “working world.”
Nearing my third fastest year, you made the most of your caffeinated nicotine-filled final hurrahs, while I enjoyed feeling the comfort of being at home with faces, who were from nowhere near my hometown.
How is it that a year later you’re so much older than me?
We talk over e-mail sometimes, and you write about your latest multi-media project, your days and nights in the City, and how much you miss “The College Years.”
You say it’s good to be working and settled.
Is that the geography of life?
Why do we talk through computers?
We should be lying on our backs…
