This weekend, my daughter, Libby, will be graduating from Miami University. Miami is very special to our family. My mother graduated from there, my best friends are Miami U. graduates, my husband and I met and married there, becoming Miami Mergers, and now Libby and her fiancé will become graduates of M.U., as well as Miami Mergers in June (her fiancé's parents are also Miami Mergers). We've grown to love Libby's friends and will miss them as they scatter around the world. This is an end of an era since our youngest daughter, Katie, chose OSU and just finished her freshman year there. We forgive you, Katie. ;-) In honor of Miami and graduation, I wrote a poem.
ODE TO MIAMI UNIVERSITY
In the summer of 1975,
when I was nine,
my father and I drove through
the cobblestone streets of Oxford, Ohio
on our way to Brookville Lake
to fish.
I gazed through the
car windows
at the red brick buildings,
the early morning summer fog
resting serenely on the emerald
grass.
Multi-hued flowers
danced along the
sidewalks and along stone walls.
Oaks, maples, and magnolias
created long shadows,
the sun just beginning
to rise.
I thought,
as Robert Frost once did; this is
the most beautiful campus
that ever there was.
In the fall of 1985,
my parents gave me
one last teary hug,
leaving me in a
second floor corner room
of the stone and ivy covered
walls of The Pines
in East Quad
with two of my best
high school friends,
becoming my college roommates.
Smiles spread wide across
our faces, eyes glistening
from goodbyes.
Here we were, at last.
It was the college
of our dreams,
full of possibilities.
Four short years later,
after a kiss and proposal
under the Upham Arches,
a marriage was sealed
at Kumler Chapel.
In the spring of 2015,
another four short years
after we dropped our own daughter
off at Tappan Hall
with her own high school best friend,
my goodbye eyes glistening
again,
a new generation will gather
in Yager Stadium
for final words of inspiration
and the turning of tassels.
More dreams will swim
in educated minds,
memories weaving in and out
of the throngs of students.
In June, a wedding will again
take place,
another Miami Merger,
friends gathering to celebrate
before scattering around the world.
To think that in such a place
I lived such a life...
Adieu, Miami University.
Libby's Graduation Cap
(Take a look at Mary Oliver's
"The Summer Day")
Join the Poetry Round-up at Diane Mayr's blog,
Random Noodling.
