For some the door opens automatically.

Others have to push hard

To get to the books, the art history,

To be placed in front of the woman

Or man who explains how we evolve,

Who asks you to think about the why of war,

Who says Listen to this…and suddenly

Beethoven’s Ninth leaps from a silver wafer,

Who plays that other masterpiece,

Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.”

And you find yourself transformed.

Then one day the police come and bolt

The campus gate. Now you’re locked out,

Looking in, wondering why

Your life has been arrested, what crime

You committed to end up doing time.

And you find yourself transformed.

The Senators say Don’t call us—we’ll call you.

And there in the hangar sits your future, idle,

An experimental plane that runs on moonlight,

Half finished for lack of funds,

Lack of dreaming, lack of heart,

Lack of mathematicians, engineers, mechanics,

Historians, painters, biologists, writers

Physicists, economists, chemists,

Musicians, librarians, geologists,

Poets, singers, programmers and philosophers.

They were supposed to work with you

To complete the delicate struts and wings

For you to fly. But they weren’t there—

Phone lines cut, told to go home,

Your dream plane stuck on the ground,

Someone brings a hack saw to cut open

The campus gate. Someone calls the Senators

Demanding they reveal the secret password

To the automatic door, demanding to know

Who gets in, who doesn’t, and why.

And you find yourself transformed.

                                                            --Ed Harkness