This is the time of the year where
seniors in purple fly through the halls
riding on scooters
as per school tradition.
Where I play "Pomp and Circumstance"
twenty-eight times in a row
while they tromp sloooooowly down the aisle.
The days are scalding
and the nights are balmy
the sky is too blue,
the earth burned slowly brown
the trees green
the grass gold
and the air still.
These are the days when phone book bags
saw at my fingers while I trudge from house to house
raising money for next year.

Next year will be my turn.
The nights will be alive with the music
of my prom
and my graduation;
the halls will be aflame
with the purple of my spreading robes.
Next year I will leave, turn away to the river-blue mountains
the icing-white crests and go.
To Canada, to New York, to Seattle or Portland --
the throbbing quiver of life
of people experiencing one another --

where I go doesn't matter. Next year,
this time,
I will be gone.