Execution

Eating a sober lunch of rye bread with peanut butter, the UD spins
his ergonomically sound chair towards the window and for inspiration searches
outside, for the cast iron sculpture’s newly moved blue bolted prow. His gaze pans
past pond towards TiasNimbas and the proud ship of knowledge. He sees
it has been given the second chance it deserves. He reflects
on Tilburg’s murdered maple - no reprieve there; the saw’s buzz still echoes
so he will join the protest at four the following day, though he knows
he would never chain himself to a tree, and of anthropomorphism he disapproves.

His swiss cheese plant, the office’s own groene oase, spills
over papers and pens, his desk’s organized chaos, forms
a higgledy-piggledy mini-jungle, defies
the consensus of grey furniture. If he uproots
this palm, the room’s uniformity triumphs
but it will suffer no herinrichting like the vijfsprong. The thesis he is editing needs
trimming, thinning; his plant he will always spare. It is paragraphs he sentences
to cuts, and with mighty pen slashes.
Now he’s digested brown bread and dangling participles, he turns
to the production of his own paper, the tree he daily drip feeds
with data, nourishes with sources, in readiness for when he prunes,
fine-tunes
and eventually publishes.

He begins.