Other rooms, other lives

Back in Cambridge, twenty years on,
Embaggaged with kids, I am baffled by road signs
Alien to my remembered pedestrian geography.

College windows leak the whiff of student rooms:
A cocktail of coffee, joss-sticks, cigarettes,
Sweat, lust, hope and lassitude.

Living here then I had felt at home;
All conceivable wants were served.
Leaving had left me feeling bereft,
Cast into the outer darkness.

As dusk descends the lights go on
In libraries and studies
Like candles lit in supplication to Academe;
I once had wished to worship thus.

Now, though, it wouldn't suit:
Too busy, too cramped, too constrained
By endless polite negotations.

It is as well all wishes are not granted,
I conclude as I re-pack the car,
The swirling Fenland wind catching vainly at my coat.



Martin Locock, 2000