Once Eighteen

I think this is “a wrap.”

I’ve walked the walks,

Reminisced in Brokaw 402,

And paced the once-cindered track

Where I set some marks.

Much the same, yet…

As much or more has changed.

Old and once familiar has been

Removed, renovated, renamed.

New occupies once open space.

Students once green and naïve stroll by,

Impressively mature and native.

Reflecting on my own “back then” unawareness –

The campus, the town, the world -

How little I knew of places and contexts!

I marvel now at all I once had neatly” fixed”

And had so confidently “in place”

That September of 1959.

Even more I marvel at both the unfixing,

And subsequent greater elaborations,

Begun that awakening fall -

A wide-eyed eighteen has morphed

Into a wizened seventy-two.

Retrospective, advantaged by

Five decades and more,

Links arms with that early Prospective

As we walk in quiet gratitude

For all that this place has come to mean.

Don Kersemeier

Lawrence Class of ’63

June 2013, 50th Reunion