FINAL EXAM

                 About the oval table, students sit
                 Bent over their examination books
                 Inscribing answers that are meet and fit
                 With urgent concentration in their looks.
                 The sense of ticking time is palpable.
                 So many questions yet to be addressed
                 And time, which started out as plentiful
                 Their urgent efforts will now soon arrest.
                 This is a ritual of academe,
                 A nightmare haunting grads in after years
                 Who suffer from an oft-recurring dream
                 Of having over-slept—the worst of fears.
                      Yet here they are, about to finish up
                      As I march toward my ending rhyme—hup, hup!

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