City School in Autumn

The streets around are indescribably filthy -
Bottles, cans, paper, dogshit, nameless sludge;
The cast-out ordure of modern life washes round kerbs and corners
In mediaeval abundance.
You soon learn where to hold your breath as you pass.

The school is a hybrid:
Sixties tasteless tacked messily on to Victorian dreary;
Slippery, bright corridors with banging, spring-loaded doors
Lead to dark, smelly staircases of narrow stone steps.

And yet, on this quiet afternoon, the children gone,
Autumn still works its old magic;
Leaves still shiver to earth with a sad grace,
Or decorate the distance with colours
For which we have no words.

A weakening sun donates its misty light,
Making a new dimension of translucence;
The grass, the leaves, the unimaginative yard
Are touched with sweetness,
And for these few hours,
Even this place takes its turn with Truth.