L357 assignment #--

The Day Light Shined
Ala Frank O’Hara
 

It is 7:17 at Ivy Tech Wabash Valley
one day after smoke ring day- yea, fryday-
it’s 2006, I’m a student and working- the JD Gator
is my chariot as i clear Coke cans and Camel butts
from the four cardinal facing parking lots
before any but maintenance walks the grounds

I drive into the shop and look for my Echo
trimmer and line, a pair of cutters, some gas and the time
as I’m driving back to the lots whose slots are filling,
but my sight’s on the lawns, where i dance and play
 
                                                                      I’m paid
when lunch rolls around so i roll on down 1st street
to Pizza Di Roma for a slice of Italy, New York style
and I smile as i drive back, this time for biotech class
where we play with jellyfish GFP and bacterium genomes;
we cut and paste with REs1] and Topo II[2] and the bugs glow-
We discuss efficiency, how Lilly and Pfizer bank roll;
i think about all the ways Cannabis could help the world
and how wild lettuce could help reduce what’s swollen

Driving down 1st again I side-step the traffic of 3rd
and I’m home, where I pack the evening bowl, Prince Albert
Cherry Vanilla, and i pack the evening bowl of Popeye power
and my bud Clint & i putt down Maple to Fruitridge
to the Hawthorn Park short cut which leads me to a grove
on the lake just as the sun is working itself westward and low

i’m snapping a lot now, with the Canon’s shutter firing;
i lean against the wind and watch sunbeams shatter and
flow into my squinted aperture and i imagine the sun’s wave;
and Gaia breaths- and thought and clocks stopped ticki-