Page 26 - Mansfield 2019/20

How to cope at Uni
You could watch the sunset reflected
on the post-it notes pinned to the walls,
and go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Or not; stay up instead, join conversations with the lights off, confessionals with fairy-lights draped over your shoulders. Then
go out, and hear your heels clatter on old uneven pavements, keeping balance then losing it on stable ground, be caught
when you fall and hold on when
you’re fine again and notice
the moonlight on a clock tower, learn
that night is not dark, it’s blue,
it’s silver, it’s a rosy gold leaking
from streetlamps. And sense the mist rising around you, ghostly boats floating
in the fog on a canal, and let it remind you
of home, the damp, grey country air.
You might elude the sunrise, or catch
its last remnants. You could count up everything you missed, or learn
to be content all the same.
Chantale Davies (English, 2020)
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