Identity

What are you?
You hang there on the ceiling
Bright red against the yellowed tiles
Hanging among the flourescent tubes
Which reflect their light on the wooden desk
Filled with scratches and stains of ink

What are you?
Poised in the center of the room
Watching as we walk the aisles
Looking at books with yellowed pages
With words that mean nothing
Yet we still read and quote for our papers

What are you?
You sit steadfast as with a purpose
To watch over us all as we read and write
For classes that day and days beyond
Where we learn our lessons in crowded rooms
Dreaming of freedom and that girl in the hall

What are you?
That I’ll never know
So I sit here and wonder
While my life passes me by


[Published in The Oak, July 2006]