by Tom Davy

I sit with a bear on a sofa.
He tells me of his troubles;
The drunkards who stormed in at night
Just some months ago: asking for toast,
Sipping at tea.
‘None for me, of course’,
Or so I’d imagine he’d say
In his supine, wordless way.

In truth, I was one of them;
The toast-nibbling, tea-dribbling drunks
As sofa-slumped as he is now, sinking,
Thinking how the night would shape
The landscape of our lives.

Now, looking back,
It is strange how much has shifted
In this spectacle of change.
We’ve watched existence rearrange
Tectonically; the open rift
Of the once-familiar, torn apart,
Scattered round these verdant lawns
And left to our designs.
How soon we’d intertwine;
How soon this scholar’s pantheon –
This learned, spiring work of art
Would unify and summon up
That subtle sense
Of home.

The bear is quiet now.
Outside, beneath the fireflies
Of cosmic white across the skies,
The guest night starts to disappear;
And he, his eyes upon the quad,
Finds comfort in the atmosphere.