Photos and Poetry from a College SeniorEat Write Play Stacey Upton Bracey

I’m proud of my soon-to-be college graduate son, Spencer. He’s doing a great job navigating this odd spring of 2020. He’s currently living alone in his apartment finishing up his last semester at George Washington University without roomates, without celebration, his graduation ceremony cancelled. He’s travelled the globe these past four years as an International Business major and will be graduating summa cum laude. He’s passionate about philosophy (his minor), music and film. I think he’s a wonderful writer too. Here are his images and reflections from the past two months in Washington DC.

**The featured image above is the Washington Monument taken from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Its usually packed with people. Below is outside Whole Foods on GWU campus — in the distance you can see the arch of the Foggy Bottom metro station.

Days
Days,
Days like today
Where time slips like coins
Through cracks in the hours.
Ten minutes here, five there.
Never the hours,
No such thing as a sixty-cent coin.
No,
It’s nickels, dimes, quarters through a hole
In an old wooden porch.
Peeling white paint and rusted nails 
Too vivid for days like today.
There goes another
Little silver sliver,
I thought I was saving it for something.

Days,
Days like yesterday
Where it all makes sense.
A train on the tracks,
Going somewhere nice.
Hills roll by, 
Overgrown with the smell of summer.
Yeah,
Slowly pacing- chugging along.
And you, shoveling coal--
Firing the engine.
Getting where you’re going.
It makes it easier,
As it pieces together,
You roll along on your little adventure.

Days,
Who knows what the day is tomorrow. 
Coins through porches or coals in trains?
Maybe both, maybe neither.
Maybe the time won’t be fumbled.
Maybe not thrown to embers.
Maybe it won’t go anywhere at all.
Sitting in a field.
The day will be that:
Shining sun,
Green grass, and a breezy wind.
The day won’t have to be anything,
Except an old quilt and a turkey sandwich.
Ah,
Days like tomorrow.
2/21/20


Attention
Due to recent
Coronavirus related worries
Your ambitions have been cancelled.

Please note,
This is a difficult situation
And the nervous center
Of your brain
Finds it hard to make this decision.

The administration believes
That due to the lack of restaurants
Open,
The absence of friends
Around,
The majority of rent
Due,

That it is totally ok
To just give up,
For like a few days.

We have laid out
Guidelines as follows
For acceptable behavior
During the course
Of this banal and slow
Moving car crash:

Sleeping until two is encouraged,
As is staying up until three.

Almost doing the dishes
But then sitting down and 
Inevitably staying there for hours
Instead is recommended.

Wandering aimlessly throughout
The rooms in your house.

Frequent and pointless facetimes,
Fun tip: this can be combined with any
Of the previous tips.

Ordering too much food

In other words,
Do what you normally do,
But feel more trapped doing it.

Thank you,
And we hope you have
A hazy and timeless day.

 03/23/20

Your Hand-Held Hourglass

Today,
Time goes
Nowhere.

Moments are grains
Piled in the palm.

The wind
Will blow away
Your hand-held hourglass.

04.03.20