graduation

in cool spring the sun warms gently
and the breezes make even the most tedious
outdoor duty into a pleasure

but it is not that that makes us smile
it is the names repeated and repeated
as if each generation of parents

tapped into a collective
lack of imagination
how many dewaynes, tiffanies, brittanies
do there need to be?

the speaker makes the expected appeal
to the language of youth, while urging them
to recognise that they are now grown up

and they pay no attention not even when
the mtv bet rap video language
elicits a ripple of pained laughter from the rest of us

i think of it as a harvest
the field being cleared for a new planting
of eager and lazy youths

puer et puella fighting to keep
themselves from sleeping after the long nights
of work and partying have made it hard
to focus on their purpose

but we get them through we get them through
to the moment when they walk across the stage
as their name is called the moment when

parents and siblings and cousins and spouses
erupt in pride rejoice at seeing
an end to all the expense