Song Of The University Poem by Donna Ialongo

like a straight city twisted in my hand,
the university breathes in cement.
they sought learning in steel and found it
in racing immobility.
ramps course to open eyes,
fired with the blood in wisdom's sweat.

on tiers in children's blocks
we sit and learn from a one and a half-baked sun.
and imagine our colosseum.
and wonder why a telephone among the rocks.

and i am just another.
dial me 134693
one of a mass of undefined faces
walking. trapped in the hard cement womb,
enveloped by a turtle mother
who cares little for her children.

standing in the silence echoing
in the golden air,
i breathe and am born,
christianly defeating a number,
remembering god loves me more
than every inch of granitized higher learning.

(August 17,1965)