Mary had a piece of chalk
that was as white as cream.
She liked to doodle and
to draw whatever she would dream.
One day she came to Harvard
Square and got a little bored.
The lazy bums were playing
chess, the singers screamed and roared.
She saw a building strange
and bright that shimmered in the sun.
"I'll go and check it
out", she thought, "that building may be fun".
She walked across the
Harvard Yard and faced the Science Center.
She pushed the door, it
smoothly turned, allowing her to enter.
Mary explored the ground
floor, but nothing much was there,
Except for calculator
"Mark" preserved with proper care.
She wondered what was
up above, maybe there was more life;
She got into an elevator
and pressed the button 5.
The elevator stopped and
Mary stepped out into the hall,
Took two left turns, walked
through the door and met no one at all.
The offices were open,
but no one was in sight,
So Mary sneaked into one
room to see what was inside.
A desk covered with papers,
a bookshelf wide and tall,
A chair, a computer --
that was about all.
The scribbles on the blackboard
were very-very strange,
And there was an ugly
picture that was begging for a change.
There was an eraser, but
no chalk, said Marry: "What a pity",
Then she took out her
own piece and made the picture pretty.
She checked the news from
CNN, they were as dull as sin,
And then she wandered
out the way she wandered in.
A half an hour later Raoul
came back from lunch.
He took a look at the
blackboard and had a sudden hunch
Of a clean and neat solution
he tried so hard to trace,
Encoded in the picture
that stared into his face.
He knew the picture had
been changed while he was not around,
But who had pulled that
trick on him of course he never found.
He asked his colleagues,
asked his friends, but never he could dream
That it was done by Mary-Chris
whose chalk was white as cream.
4/10/2001
--Michael Livshits