“Since pomp and circumstance are,
In this Sunday’s scene, secluded,
To lines in verse instead,
Re: 2020, I’ve alluded…
We’ll tell this– not with sighs, but cheers–
In all the ages hence:
The story of our class for whom,
In March, grad march commenced.”
The 3 May 2020 poem was written in honor of the Spring 2020 graduates from my institution; they unfortunately were unable to have their scheduled graduation ceremony, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This upcoming weekend marks the commencement ceremony for the Class of 2021, and so this essay provides a logical place to pause these updates for a few weeks: to celebrate the conclusion of another challenging academic year.
“Since pomp and circumstance are, /
In this Sunday’s scene, secluded, /
To lines in verse instead, /
Re: 2020, I’ve alluded…”
The pomp and circumstance of commencement ceremonies generally provide a welcome and fitting end to an academic year. During Spring 2020, these attributes were necessarily “secluded”; it was not possible for students and faculty to gather for a celebratory event.
In the days leading up to what would have been the 2020 graduation ceremony, I thought often of some of the phrases in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” I referenced these “lines in verse” in this poem, in writing about the circumstances of the spring (“Re: 2020”).
“We’ll tell this– not with sighs, but cheers– /
In all the ages hence: /
The story of our class for whom, /
In March, grad march commenced.”
Whenever I mention an existing poem in one of my own verses, I am torn; Twitter’s character limit prohibits exploring any nuance in a given post, and I lack the expertise to do so, even had I sufficient space. All that said, though, I built on Frost’s description of “telling this with a sigh / [s]omewhere ages and ages hence,” in my last four lines.
We will remember our 2020 graduates far into the future, but with a celebratory air, rather than a melancholy one. These students achieved significant accomplishments in successfully finishing their coursework, despite their early departures from campus: despite the fact that their “grad march” technically began in March 2020.
Happily, though, this weekend, we will celebrate the classes of both 2020 and 2021. Thus, the graduation march described in this poem has turned out to be a path delayed, but still taken.
Chemphasis 