Summer School

I think I said elsewhere that something was my oldest poem. I was wrong. In 1984 I attended my second Open University summer school in 1984, and had fell in with a bunch of people who made the most of the week - we partied all night and attended classes all day. We had so much fun together.

And, as it happened, two of us fell madly in lust. But we recovered. And no, we weren't studying English Literature; we were studying Systems Analysis.

 

It was a midsummer week’s illusion,
Making of us dryads in Titania’s wood.
“No guilty conscience” we agreed,
Breeding love by seeking to elude it;
We would not talk of it nor act it out.

Love was for those we left behind in Athens.
Falling in love for innocents, or
For majesty.  Even under Aphrodite’s aegis
We recalled Aurora’s cool breath.

This accord was its own undoing:
Honour was a wick to passion’s flame.
Too late, we found compunction played
Robin Goodfellow with desire.

© Alexa Duir 1984