Bordeaux Bay

Bordeaux Bay
Bordeaux Bay by Guernsey-based artist Tony Taylor

Friday 21 December 2018

DEAD POETS SOCIETY 1

My travels in England earlier this year brought me to numerous places of interest: fine old pubs, rustic churches and tiny, peaceful hamlets far removed from the angst and clamour of urban life in the UK nowadays.  
One of the most tranquil and visually pleasing villages I visited was Grantchester, of which the poet Rupert Brooke wrote:
  
          Stands the Church clock at ten to three?  
         And is there honey still for tea? 

... the famous, closing lines of his poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester.
 

Jane and I arrived in Grantchester on a particularly rainy day and took refuge in The Green Man pub where I jotted down the opening lines of my own “Grantchester” poem.
















GRANTCHESTER

Like waking in a former time
from dreams of future-shock and fear,
I stare at streets devoid of grime,
expecting spray-paint to appear
on gable-ends pristinely white,
with no graffitied words in sight.

An ancient pub, a village hall,
with thatched roof, nearby meadowland,
recalls a time when this was all
the norm: a peaceful, car-less land
without fake-news or food made fast,
with fixed foundations built to last.

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