Friday, March 31, 2023

hopes for college

 

Rachel ready to soar


Our granddaughter is 18 

and soon graduates from high school,

college calls to her, as does travel,

as do people not yet known to her

but to whom she is drawn,

as if she has a thirst

that only the social quenches, 

as if she feels an absence

that only new people can fill,

only new challenges,

only releasing herself to follow new paths,


other people are vital to her:

lifelong friends, comrades from other experiences,

larger wholes that call to her,


I ask: "What do you hope for in college?"

and she answers that she wants to grow:

to make leaps in perspective,

to actualize the possibilities

that can grow exponentially in college,


just where to go on this odyssey isn't clear to her,

the college is clear, just not a linear sequential path

of just where the next years will actually go--

in classes, with friends, with just how the future will call to her,


similar to how just being in nature can be of awe and wonder,

so, too, the journey before her feels full of wonder.
















































by Henry H. Walker
March 26, ‘23

No comments: