OLD GREENWAYS SCHOOL

The house's lichened skin absorbs the light,
Virginia creeper burning on its walls.
Tall stiff-sashed windows gaze upon the hills
and all the intervening stillnesses
of evening gold. The terrace lies inert;
its schizoid paving waits for Westmacott
to sprain his ancient ankle once again
and promise litigation for the school.

My mother's hammock on her private lawn
creaks faintly like a slowed-down metronome.

The copper beech's life is nearly done,
each year its foliage thinner. Ponies range
around its trunk in search of grass blades, shun
the darnel and the clumps of dock, whip off
the flies with whisking tails. Beyond them stand
the juicy stems of nettles with their scent
of guarded places. Alders hide the stream
and drown their shadows in its turbid light.

My mother's hammock on its private lawn
swings with the voice of the complaining elm.

In March the wing* is cold, and we have glimpsed
old Westmacott in bed with Latin tests,
fedora on, his gnarled neck lagged in wool.
Thought beached by the receding tide reveals
more ghosts: there's Kitty stirring Irish stew,
her cigarette stuck fast to lower lip,
its overhanging tube of ash which falls
with regularity outside the stew.

My mother's hammock on her private lawn
moves like a denture in the mouth of time.

In dormitories where rotting pine is patched
with rolled-out tins, here's Dorothy's slow smile
and flick of wrist that pours boys' urine out
of chamber pots. And there's the shapeless shape
of Lady Hedley lurking by the shrubs
to catch the boys red-handed in their theft
of hazel nuts or, peering through smudged panes,
to see them broach forbidden pantry drawers.

Is that the hammock creaking on the lawn
or is it ancient knee joints whispering?

It's raining in the school, and Matron runs
with buckets to collect the drips. Each time
the sepia maps upon the ceilings grow.
And underneath these distant firmaments
displaying continents unknown, the flies
change partners with mysterious suddenness.
The lead roof's been replaced, and yet the school
is merely memory, a flight of dreams.

My mother's hammock on her private lawn
creaks faintly like a slowed-down metronome.

The late Lord Hedley's portrait rashly hangs
upon a classroom wall; behind the face
we see his Mosque and in his pupils holes
a pupil's penknife's cunningly contrived.
And then one sunny May the Eighth a game
of cricket's stopped by Kitty Butt who calls
from pantry window, and the run's not made:
'The war is over, boys!' The game is too.

Note:*  The "wing" referred to is the wing of the large building, and is not a misspelling of "wind" as many have suggested. Editor.