by Anonymous

the sunset yawns its golden arching fingertips
across the sandstone, and my heart aches
for the sound of church bells in the morning,

as the plosive clattering of rush-hour ignites
into symphony, hubbub, life in the centre of Oxford.
the tolls of the bells,

spires conspiring, spiralling upwards,
the tolls of the bells, in this city of chapels,
bird-calls soaring over the meadows at dawn.

the plumes of trees flourishing, blossoming between dutch gables,
painted in sunbeam brush-strokes, highlighted and
shadowed, sharpened in the sunset.

with my eyes i climb the columns of the clarendon building
and imagine the view from the top, imagine myself
as the statue of Polyhymnia, resplendent, gazing. but

I must be content to walk these streets, feet on the ground,
but eyes and heart in the highest windows,
and dreams in the stars.