How will you answer when asked “What do you do?” What’s really important?   by Patricia B. Spencer

Are you being productive? 

This question came from my father, a mess hall sergeant–turned–restaurateur, who delivered this “no free lunch” query on a...

We have become more intimate with you

Than lovers, had more mastery of your limbs

Than childhood taught you. Once you looked inside

Your spirit, offered your heart to someone dear.   

Now you have let us strangers heft that heart

And...

 (for the class of 1977’s 30-Year Reunion)

“Ithaca, forever” . . . whatever

a hopeful dream,

a wish that, like Ulysses, we might

come home if we could ever

outlive our students loans.

...

"The phrase 'Dancing with the Devil' suggests that someone is flirting with sin, corruption, or disaster. It is therefore a common dance that everyone revels in from time to time, but to my knowledge no music had ever been written to accompany it. This work begins innocently enough, but gradually gains exuberance and intensity as the devil persists and the dance...

When Shadrach left the furnace

All Babylon was ablaze,

Terrible and brilliant light

Slashing and clawing from walls

Of yellow brick, from palm fronds,

From the high sun that echoed

Jubilation.   The shafts leaped ...