Simon P Walker

Hooray! We are going home!
It was not expected to feel this way;
Such lightness!
The medieval town of gown
And car, of honey stone
And silly dress, dishevelled don
And flocking bikes, and scurried rush
And languid punts and local drawl
And London set and Headington Hill
And hospital (and such intense experience!)
Of gain and loss, despairing spires
And Mercury in a morning glow.
And ancient cloisters, youthful feet
Stagnant dogma and hopeful belief
And Newman, Pusey, Ruskin, Hooke
And candy walls and turgid book.
And tragic past of saints at stake
Of prayer books cast, and communities torn
And soaring rent (thus Blackbird Leys born)
by so-called ideology.
Oxford, my place. Strange home to me,
Hooray! To say we are coming home.

On moving back to Oxford November 2003