Outside, Excitement!
Hoover Menaced by Giant Crane!
Campus drive is chewed up
And regurgitated
Into a nice, new boulevard
Confined by curbs.
Residences are concentration camps
Of new construction,
Locked inside chain fences.
White Plaza, as always,
Is the battleground
Of men and machines
Searching for lost pipes.
The Language Corner,
Tooth-pillars knocked out
By seismic dentists,
Wobbles on wooden pallets,
While men like mice
Skitter across the bones of its roof
And lay plywood.
Everyone rushes to be done by fall,
When the students return,
Parents in tow, hoping to see
A Stanford whose pristine face
Is free of scaffolding,
And trenches,
And machinery.

Fall: when the breeze
Breathes softly through the trees,
And all is quiet again,
And the deluge moves indoors.