Some Years Back

For Albertus Magnus College on its Centennial

Written by Sarah Harris Wallman, M.F.A.
Director of the Master of Fine Arts Program; Professor of English

Some Years Back pdf

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In the beginning… 
(Perhaps you know this one)
A grove of trees.
A mighty storm.
It is 1989.
The storm takes 90 trees
And the roof of the new gymnasium.
But this is only one beginning.

Try this one: 2010
The game clock empties.
A Falcon at half court
Launches his shot:
Our first March Madness.
Fans storm the floor.
This kind of ending lets you play another day.

Further back: a kind of paradise.
The Algonquin-speaking peoples
must know it.
A spring of cool water.
It is not yet 1492.
I don’t know what name they gave
this place.

Come to the spring: its inn, its spa!
In 1898 a golf course.
These wonders pass back into the land;
Darlington builds the house that stays,
A wedding cake house
For his daughter the bride.
It is 1905.

A century is a necklace with many beads.
Freshmen arrive in beanies and
mandatory skirts.
It is 1958.
Freshmen arrive: the president
carries their luggage
It is 2022.
A hurricane takes 60 trees.
It is 1938.
Freshmen arrive and they are men.
It is 1985.

In the annex to Mohun Hall,
an art studio.

A century is a string with many beads:
Your humanities professor is
serving fondue
on the last day of Invitation to Insight.
Your art professor is at your doorstep
delivering clay
For Covid ceramics.
Sister Mary Faith teaches the Odyssey
when she’s not in the gym:
Mens sana in corpore sano
Dr. Calabresi is translating The
Divine Comedy:
The more a thing is perfect, the more
it feels pleasure,
The more it feels pain.

The times, they are a-changing
(Perhaps you know this one):
Three hundred students boycott class
As if they had a million voices.
It is 1967.
The student body president asks,
“Do you want to be cultivated, like
a vegetable?”
Now take 2024:
A Dominican Sister of Peace is in the
student center
Offering evening crafts:
Peace bracelets with
many-colored beads.
Conflict springs up anywhere,
Peace must be nurtured from the seed.
Where the tornado took the trees,
a soccer field.
Where the spring went underground,
a garden.
The Mohun Hall annex is a physics lab.

A hurricane;
It is 2011.
A hurricane;
It is 2012.
The Mohun annex is human resources.

Storms come and springwaters return
To swallow the Aquinas parking lot.
The renovated student center
Is closed in its first month.
It is 2020.
The annex to Mohun Hall:
the marketing department.

Our wellspring flows through
many centuries.
Catherine of Siena says
“Speak the truth
as if you had a million voices.”
It is 1378.

Mother Stephanie says,
“Plan everything for the future.”
Beginnings:
Mother Stephanie runs into a fire.
A child is saved;
Her arm is lost.
“Plan,” says Mother Stephanie,
“As if you had a million dollars.”
It is 1924.
The Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of
the Springs are planning.

The bursar is running late
He has not deposited the fall tuitions
He keeps them in a sack.
It is 1929.
The bank fails that day.
The sack does not.
This kind of ending lets you play
another day.
Let the planning go on: Nilan Hall, Sansbury.
McAuliffe with its secret door.
In my Father’s house are many rooms

(Perhaps you know this one),
But Rebecca Stoddard dies in the house
her father built -
This is 1913 -
Her family moves away.
Polo ponies put to pasture.
No more parties with pearls.

Not all stringed beads are decadence
Some are good for decades
Call it Rosary Hall
Use these many rooms for teaching,
for living
At last, it is 1925.

Sister Charles Marie wields a mace
To lead graduates down Prospect Street.
It is 1977 and stifling.
Or ‘93 and cold.
It is 2005 and raining.
Or 2010 and clear.
The robed ones cross the porch of the
wedding cake house
And wave goodbye to alma mater.
We call this end commencement.
A beginning.