The gravestone-looking slab donated to the college
for instructing students about light and dark
and the rotation of the world stands solemnly
in the courtyard being landed on by buff-colored
sparrows with shining breasts and claws. It is
summer in the suburbs and the voices of students
seem to travel a long way from the field
as light has had to travel from far off
to abide in this rock. Two steel pegs
and a chart that looks like a quarter of a pie
etched into the granite will show the passage
of the sun, and in the grooved triple name
of the donor, in the E for east and W for west,
in the other grooves flecked by mica today
the light from noon looks a bit forlorn.