I couldn’t remember the last time I had been here,

In fact, it felt like I had forgotten your looming presence, clock tower and all,

But how could that be? When for 3 years my bus to secondary school had passed here every day,

And I had walked through, kicked a ball and sat in the meadows in your shadow,

Now I was inside your very faded grandeur near the end of the decade, the end of the century,

It felt like time was counting down, the neglect that comes when everyone knows that things are fading and near the end,

And that seemed odd your black and white interior clashing with the technicolour of the summer outside,

As you provided the shelter for life to begin anew.