A sodden mind sheds soggy morals
off its duck’s-back basis of relief.
Squatting now upon their laurels
years of yearning learning get relief.

An open mind is fertile earth,
ideas raining down on it at length;
like land, it drinks when near its birth
with gusto, turning moisture into strength.

The summer mind’s ideas flower,
flourish with the rains, until at last
its fruits and foliage – wisdom’s power –
are harvested, and the day of youth is past.

Now Autumn minds grow brown of leaf
and rains erode the sated autumn earth.
The spare supply of wet belief
is wasted. Lack of want destroys its worth.

Yet know that though the ground will freeze
and snows of dullness cover summer’s green,
yet ice will melt with the first warm breeze;
and somewhere there are always evergreens.

-Trinity Class Poem, 1967 –
(Somewhat of a rush job – could have used a bit more polishing.)