UNIVERSITY PARKS

1st May, 2009

Running over blades of light
In Oxford on this worship me! day,
The ipod piping noon and the season
Into blood that just the other day
I’d judged old and cooled. 
And all the family optimism
Coalescing in a rush
As Keble chapel limbers into view,
The Light of the World inside,
And inside me:
The Toon will go down, the Tories get in,
But by God, or whoever, life will go on.

Now I dare to think I know a mote-sized part
Of what my mother meant
That moment in the car four years ago
(Her sentence months-back passed):
Oh Aixy, I didn’t think I’d see another spring!
She was sun-dazzled, and inexplicably hopeful.