Aug 30, 2012
Posted by Holly Ordway in New poetry | 4 Comments
Oxford: A Sonnet
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03 — 656.1KB)
This past summer I spent eight weeks in Oxford, writing, walking, soaking in the beauty of the place (and getting literally soaked by summer rain on more than one occasion); it gave me the chance to see the great City of Dreaming Spires in different moods, different weather, to get a sense of the deep layers of history in this place.
June-July 2012 was a particularly wet season, and this particular sonnet is an evocation of summer rain in the city. If the audio player does not appear, click on the title of the sonnet, below, to hear my reading of the poem.
Off High Street, Oxford. Photo by Holly Ordway.
Below a blank and unreflective sky,
The air is full of rain: in shifting lines,
Almost unseen, it darkens brick and stone,
Scatters into droplets on the ivy.
A church-bell gives the hours; each solemn peal
Hinting at a jubilation waiting
Just outside our sight, beyond our hearing.
Again, again, once more; the last note fades
Into the brightening air. Few passers-by
Look up as sunlight glows in sheets along
The stonework walls, and strikes sharp notes of light
In scattered mirror-patches on the road.
I stand here still among the crowds; the dreaming
City wakes, then drifts to dream again.
.
.
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Lovely, Holly! Thanks! makes me homesick :) Alas, we do not have enough church bells on this side of the pond.
Hello Dr. Ordway,
I hope all is well with you and I hope you are enjoying your new teaching position. I apologize for not getting in touch with you sooner. The poem you have written about Oxford is lovely. If you don’t know of him already, Tom O’Bedlam does simply rich and authentic readings of poetry on his youtube channel called SpokenVerse. You should definitely check him out. Please feel free to email me if you get a chance. Thank you again for being such a wonderful teacher!
Kristina, it is nice to hear from you! I am enjoying the new job at HBU very much, thanks. I’m teaching a couple of literature classes this fall before the apologetics program gets going in January — right now my classes are doing Shakespeare (King Lear and As You Like It) and the Odyssey. In the spring I’ll be teaching writing… to graduate students now, but just as tough as I was on you 201 folks :) I hope you are doing well and getting off to a good start for the semester. I’ll definitely check out Tom O’Bedlam — thanks for the suggestion.
Carolyn — thanks for the kind words! I completely agree about the need for church bells over here… I am gratified to find that the Catholic churches around here, at least, ring the bells before mass… I don’t think I’ve heard any tolling the hours, though. That would be nice!
This is really lovely, Dr. O. I’m late responding, I know- somehow I didn’t see this one! Made me think of Eliot’s line– “You had such a vision of the street/ as the street hardly understands.”