Mary Krane Derr 


MY COLLEGE EDUCATION

Once among the dining hall's 
dull hubbubs 
and scratchy beige trays, 
a classmate pointed out 
the leftover orange 
cradled slackly at the ready in my hand 

and confided 
that its skin's pinpoints of indentation 
fall into the same pattern 
as the galaxies in space. 

I have yet to know 
if that's a God-honest fact 
but ever since I have often thought twice 
about peeling off the universe 
and flinging it aside 
without so much 
as an astronomical look. 
 

Copyright 1999, Mary Krane Derr 
 


From the poem cycle, "The Ravelling Back Into the Text of Her Genesis: A Woman's Way Home to the Divine Feminine," presented at the 1999 Parliament of the World's Religions in Cape Town, South Africa. Originally published in the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin Online (Summer 1999). 



Switched-on Gutenberg/Vol. 4, No. 2 
 
Previous Contents Next