AN ODE TO DAVIS SPRING Wednesday morning breaks An hour later than last week and the sun Marks exactly 8.5 weeks left until The quarter passes silently and painfully like Beer through the deteriorating liver of A fifth-year student but luckily advancements Are being made in the field of organ transplants Every day so he'll probably live to see his first Grandchild give her first piano recital If he exercises and eats right. ********************** The Quad is packed with shiny pale bodies Crammed like sardines being cruelly Netted and sent to their death in A little tin with mustard sauce with a twist-back Lid but beware of the fish spines that are still in There with the mustard sauce And are kind of crunchy and unpleasant But then again if God didn't want us to Eat animals He wouldn't have Made them out of meat. ********************** Euro-Rail passes are being purchased and No one is in the labs after hours much Yet this term because midterms aren't for a Week yet and sometimes it's hot outside Especially at night with daylight savings Time which came about as a result Of heavy lobbying on the part of the Charcoal briquettes industry which figures that More daylight hours means more barbecues At night. ********************** Bicycle traffic has increased too, creating An even greater traffic hell than Existed before every moron in town Feels it's his/her Allah-given right to go Merrily veering in and out of lanes like a Deer in the headlights of a giant grain Harvester bearing down on the helpless Woodland creature while its last mortal Thoughts scatter through its tiny brain On their way to Infinity and Beyond! ********************** In Davis the freaks on E Street come out At night prompting drive-by shoutings At the teens that stand waiting for sympathy Smokes outside the Newsbeat and Slyly gulping from the Jim Beam they Sneaked from the parental Liquor cabinet which is a seemingly Harmless infraction but could possibly lead To further lawlessness of a more serious Nature including movie-hopping. ********************** Little League teams seek corporate Sponsors so they can have the coolest Uniforms in the eight-and-under bracket And eager mothers think of the winningest Team names possible like the Davis Dynamites Which was approved due to the word Play on "Mites" meaning little people and also Because the PTA president thought of it and Her son is the pitcher this season and she Pledged so many cookies for the bake-off. ********************** Continuing students are looking frantically For non-infested housing and occasionally It comes to blows over who will sublet The house with the pool and twisting slide As the roommates think about having a House-warming party but decide against it Because they'll get fines for breaking the Noise ordinance and annoying the real family Next door who bought their house and awoke To discover they were living in a college town. ********************** The Day of Reckoning is drawing nigh and Seniors everywhere are preparing for The great Cut-Off which is the day that Those whose parents have been Giving them an allowance these Past six or seven years which they Blew on CDs and speakers for the cars they Don't even have to pay to insure themselves Must arrive at THE PLAN for "a-dull-thood" Including a job and a permanent residence. ********************** And hence spring has arrived in our quaint if Odd little agricultural Valhalla and soon the Streets will be littered with the torn and broken Bodies of brave little tomatoes who would rather Leap to certain death from a moving truck than Become a slave to the Man at Campbell's And in only 8.5 weeks the mass exodus will Begin as we leave this town for parts unknown But for unknown parts infinitely and inevitably < More interesting and promising. -- Megan Smith graduated from UC Davis this June and plans to attend law school. "An Ode to Davis Spring" was published in The California Aggie after the death of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.