A Week at Clare College

A gentle softness of time settles on silent walls
While youth and future greatness scurries on inside your halls,
Marking a languid link with “then” and “now”
As scratchy ink from pen and thought from furrowed brow
Did prove its point and genius flowed from long-dead minds
Now move from joint liaison with “virtual” strangers’ finds.

With creaking floorboards on the curving stair
Rise up to view the greenness of your Quad out there -
Through mullioned glass you view the life walk by
A scullion ‘d pass; a few to knife and fork to buy
A meal in the café where Dons and staff and students all
Find time together, fat to chew, and ponder on the next May Ball.

The peaceful Backs from office window rear
Look over Cam and Fellows’ Garden near.
The gritted paths for centuries of shoes and wheels
Lay knitted garths around the grounds of yews and steals
Time out from study hard to offer rest and calmness from
The melee of the working day and relentless intercom.

One evening after work I strayed toward the town
At dusk; a lonely soul across the Quad , in brown
Raincoat; looked back at Chapel windows, soft-focused lit
And heard the practised evensong – and it
Was if I’d travelled back in time! To where the street
And modern city grime and Clare, were destined soon to meet.

I’ve left your hallowed halls and lofty rooms I’m sad to say ~
Some others stay behind to finish what they
Came to do and some are there for ever – well, you know
As long as our short life allows, and never want to go.
But Clare will stay and watch the changes over time
Protecting all her charges and her history, sublime.