Letter to the Editor: An Ode to Construction at Tarleton State University
December 11, 2017
Oh magic eight ball,
What way shall I go?
If you work at TSU,
That answer is, who knows.
Cones and barrels,
And fencing galore?
When will they be done?
Only six months more.
We’ve heard it before
From people that balk.
The project is worth
The delays to your walk.
The fencing appears
Like a wraith in the night
Blocking your access
To the left and the right.
Six months for a sidewalk
Of one hundred yards.
But it will consume the parking spaces
Of six hundred cars.
It’s part of expansion,
Progress they say.
But it adds six miles
Of walking each day.
For the workers seem
To delight in our pain.
Behind fences they watch
At our hopeless distain.
You can see them smile
When a dead end appears
From the fence they erected
When you’re in class with our peers.
Now in my email
What is it I see?
Beautification projects
Projected till twenty thirty.
Oh magic eight ball
What shall we do?
Contractors have cut power
All across TSU.
It’s the end of the term
And everything is due.
As workers shrug
Without even a clue.
As if this were enough
A Code Purple we hear,
A gas line was cut
Number six for the year.
Evacuations and delays
At the worst time of term
Teachers frantically adjust
As their students just squirm.
With progress like this
It’s hard to digest
What the campus will be
By the end of this mess.
Elevator you enter
At your own peril
Like riding Niagara
In a rotten oak barrel.
If nothing else,
The failures do seem
To train personnel
From the campus Response Team.
We hope and pray
As we go home each night.
That this construction will end
Sometime in our life.
Charles Stonick • Dec 30, 2017 at 6:06 PM
I like your Ode to Construction. Good piece.
Patrick Denis Stoker • Jan 16, 2018 at 10:30 AM
Glad you enjoyed it. It seemed the most constructive way to vent.