“Misty morning on Oxford's Port Meadow”

Misty morning on Port Meadow—  
Shawl of silver on emerald spun—  
Dew-dropped hush where hoofprints echo  
beneath the ponderous waking sun.  
Magdalen’s spire, faint and distant,  
leans through the gauze, lost to dream.  
A muted river wears her garment,  
slow as time, soft as a stream.

Cows drift silent—ghostly islands  
floated from the near-night’s tide—  
And reed and rush in wordless silence  
bow together, side by side.  
Around, the willows, pale and secret,  
sink their roots in ancient clay,  
Centuries trailing in their keep yet  
rooted firmly in today.

A kingfisher, chip of sapphire heat,  
slashes the gauze with sudden fire;  
The laughter of wild geese, bittersweet,  
passes above a low-hedged shire.  
Bicycles rattle down the towpath lane,  
A don, lost in Virgil, walks slow—  
And at my feet, the world remade again,  
A misty marvel: Oxford’s Port Meadow.

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