An American at Lincoln College Oxford
In memory of John Wilders
Where do I begin, in England
below these dreaming spires
brother to the amber stones
warm as bitter in the setting
June, early summer sun when days
run long and Spanish tourists,
like fillies and colts crowd
the streets at afternoon then
gone, the overgrown college town
quiet at those times, those
hours beyond Christ Church
Meadow on weekdays when no
tourists crowd the blonde gravel
paths or amble below old
oaks beside the Thames or
near the Cherwell. O Oxford
you were a home to me,
the quiet one with the wrong
accent. Friends played croquet
on our inner Quad Lincoln
College green; I watched only
briefly. But played tennis
on the posh sward of
The Oxford University Tennis
Club once and once on rutted
University Park grass court,
dank or bare in spots with
dead spots which yielded
the perfect drop shot easy point.
Or across the hedge the Cricket
pitch, a keg tapped and casual
chaps gathered round. No gowned
students hurrying to Exams now.
All past, those young women sitting
together on college lawn, group
of three, or lying quiet reading
in the inner garden among stone
walls. All past, rarely bridging
the silence near The Bridge of Sighs
Oxford now far, left with regret.
But all this still preferable
to the present tumult of a lesser world,
America, my old home surrounded
now by a sea of strangers, infidels.
O those months, weeks, days walking
out with her, soft brown hair beside, to our
College courts of thick grass for a rally,
the lush cricket pitch beside, or walking
back with her, stopping for tea in
small quaint shop, table cloths, civility.
Or, together we punted out to picnic
with our gallant Tutor in punt to sunlit
field beyond trees we ducked below
in soft shade to grass with wine,
and after punting back in sun
and bough – draped Cherwell
or Isis, we rode back atop
open double – decker bus smiling
in cool breeze and late afternoon light
to those ancient limestones bathed in
amber light warm to cool dark night,
after the hush of setting sun down.
All passed. O to be in England amid
those dreaming spires of Oxford,
she, you once were a home to me.
Daniel Picker MA ‘92 has been a professor of English for more than 20 years. His work has appeared in numerous publications and his book of poems, Steep Stony Road, came out 2012. He was awarded the Dudley Review Poetry Prize at Harvard in 2010.