5/8/03
Knows what I mean
By the faint smell of laundry
Permeating the quads, classrooms, dining halls
That assemble the passage of four years.
The smell - perfume, really -
Makes one wonder if it's better
To recycle what we wore and learned yesterday
Into the wrinkled garments of first period tomorrow
Than to wear and wear
Cotton like the leather
On books worth their weight in words.
We have laundered them, too.
We learned in high school
That history repeats itself.
We unlearn this in college,
Discovering instead that history is like laundry,
Spun and cleansed and similar -
The same and yet,
Instead of bearing smells and a sense of memory,
It's worn new each day,
Wrinkled even as it bears a scent
Of freshness, available only after a passage of time.
History, laundry, original knowledge
All are spun into our existence
In the quads, classrooms, dining halls.
We leave - not wiser, but well-worn into the world,
Like well-used tee-shirts and shoes.
