On Campus

The black and golden slaves of florid sugar canes

Were flying back and forth and pollinating

And worms were squirming on the cruel hooks

As anglers roughly used them for the baiting.

The water of the lake was blue,

Reflection of the skies so true

And students for exam results were waiting.

Among the girls there (and the boys) most worried was

A girl as beautiful as sweet is honey,

A girl as gentle and as courteous as you wish

A waitress to be, if you give her money

And nurses in the hospital

If ever out of health you fall:

Except to her own self, her mood was sunny.

But thinking of exam results

Was taxing all her better moods

Her heart was down into her shoes

The thoughts like heavy catapults

Were throwing questions like the stones

On mind's defenses (not her bones!)

She worried to have answered wrong

Omitting this and failing that

In triflings (judged by talking at

A bar about it or a song

Retelling all the history),

And yet she feared too great they be.

A fellow student from the course she chanced to see.

A trifler and a dabbler in the study.

Disordered and thus over all the faculty

A story of his own - and was he muddy

In brain and mind and memory?

Pain in the ass of faculty

Except she was to him a kind of buddy.

Like oft before unpacking all the sandwiches

She had prepared at home and also coffee

In thermos bottle, she called out his name

And changed a bit of food for bars of toffee :

First cheese they ate, then sausages,

Then coffee with a toffee tress

Her mood was really better then a little while

But after that a moment came, was stuffy.

- "Oh boy, I think I failed the test."

- "Perhaps you did and so did I,

At least we gave it some good try."

- "You can't have failed, you are the best."

- "No, that is you, though well I do."

- "Your doing well is very true!"

- "O Kay, suppose we fail it all,

Why worry, life has more to give

Than studies, though I like to live

Among the books so classical."

- "And so do I, but right you are

(Though, frankly, you exceed by far

The standard talent for the college course,

You're absent minded like an old professor)"

- "Don't make me pround, I'm haughty as it is

And getting penances for it from my confessor!"

- "Ah yes," she answered then and there:

"You're Catholic, or so I hear!"

- "Indeed, that is a fact you need not guess for!"

Then rang a bell, out their professor came

"Results are here," he said with gusto.

He pinned the list unto a message board

(The solid object you can trust - o!)

A throng of students would be first

To verify the best or worst

But girl and boy no quicker than they must - o!

Their talk went on behind the rest

They wanted to approach it last

And really were at all not fast.

"Come on, you two, you scored the best!"

A comrade shouted to the two,

And so they did, they had to do.

She had no faults and he had one

From negligence, there is no doubt,

They both knew what they were about.

The test was done and it was fun

To get the papers they had wrote

And read each red professor's note.

They gave the papers back to archive them

As these were those that were the most important

Of all the year. Our couple saw the victory

As somewhat of an optimistic portent.

And yet they knew within their heart

That scholarship and even art

Do matter less than matters more important.

The black and golden slaves of florid sugar canes

Were flying back and forth and pollinating

And worms were squirming on the cruel hooks

As anglers roughly used them for more baiting.

The water of the lake was blue,

Reflection of the skies so true

And anglers for more fish were waiting.