Campus Trees

The campus trees have assumed a look of being aware, of being there to think a while, pass a test, or read a book. They are alert; they have raised their boughs like startled eyelids or inquiring brows above the sidewalks, and steps that lead to doors. The crowd of students, coming back, restores them to a strict community of thought. Something is expected of them, not so simple as casting shade or sheltering birds. They may be too tentative for words but they will stand attentively, and seem by research dignified, gravely preoccupied with logic, mathematics, and matters academe.