Blue in the green trees, what are they climbing?
And girls bringing water, what are they watering
With their buckets spilling the wet dark on dry ground?

And up the hill the concrete-mixers rolling
Owned by my father when I was the same youth
As these who are my students, boys in the branches,
Young women in the young trees.

The last few drops from the faucet, carried
To the tan crumbling earth.
The earth belongs to the authorities
Of this college, and the authorities
Have turned the water off, have they?

Ask the owners of colleges, who is in the trees?
Ask the owners of concrete-mixers, who is holding
This acre of city land against the concrete?
We know where the water is.

Blue green students in the branches
Defending the tree.   The trees begin to shudder.
The concrete-mixers roll over exposed roots.

But isn’t all this a romantic delusion?
You love the pouring of the city, don’t you?
You need the buildings, don’t you?
Sift the seeds.   We need to sift the seeds.

We know where the water is.
They have turned the water off.
You don’t want buildings not to be built, do you?
The blueprint lies on the flat-top desk.

The building now is two years built,
Most of the boys went off to war,
I don’t teach there anymore.

Here we go, swimming to civilization,
We who stand and water and sift the seeds,
My students saying there word, it flies behind what I hear in the air:
“Time is God’s Blood,” Warren said. Avra wrote:
“Forgive me, Mother.   I am alive.”