"Love is not love which alters when alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove. No, it is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken." --Shakespeare (and Sense and Sensibility)

Goodbye Room

Goodbye Room full of 4 sweet roomies
Goodbye laughing and dancing and movies

Goodbye bathroom that's always so cold,
I won't miss the two faucets, or the mold

Goodbye hall that makes Kelsey's ring shine,
I'll miss running down to our door with signs

Goodbye staircase that's scary at night,
Go down, see spider web, then turn right

Goodbye living room full of people and noise
Hanging out and Nintendo with cussing boys

Goodbye Freezer Room- good homework times
The poster, the freezer, and the invading vine

Goodbye bustling kitchen, I'll miss you the most
Food group, music, and alarms from burning toast

Goodbye cake, Psych, guitars, and tea
Months of inside jokes and lovely memories

Goodbye house, where we never felt alone
Goodbye Crick, you've been a true home

Ode to Oxford

Oh my beautiful Oxford. I can't believe I almost have to leave you! I love every minute I've spent in your beautiful city! I love how you're a city, yet you're small enough that I still run into people I know while walking on the streets. I love the bikes zizzing by and filling up every pathway. I love the streets lined tall with architecturally gorgeous buildings. Everywhere you look, it takes your breath away. I love the dreary gray weather and the way colors light up against them. I love the red telephone booths and post boxes. I love hearing everyone speak in accent on the streets. "Cheers" and "Hiya" are two of my favorite words now. I don't think that I will miss the girls in leggings, but I did love making fun of them! I love that I have to wear a hat, scarf, boots, and coats as a necessity rather than an accessory. I love all the tempting clothing stores and fun souvenir shops. I love the long expanses of green, tree-covered parks. I love the churches, steeples, clocks. I love how old and famous the library I study in is. The security to get in to read is more intense than at an airport. And it's still amazing to me that sometimes when I'm heading in to study, there's a tour group right outside. Plus Susan from Narnia studies in the same library! I love the cobblestone streets, and the way they look splattered in the rain. I love the antique bookstores, the bustling streets, the pubs. The smells of Lush Body Soap and alcohol and fish and chips and cigarettes and wet pavement. I love seeing professors walk by with their elbow patches and book bags. And walking down the street hearing a group of English boys talking about Dante's "Paradise." I love the energy and sass, yet the solemnity and history of this place. It is so steeped in history and academia. I love that I have to walk anywhere up to 6 miles a day, come rain or sun or 30 degree weather. I love that pounds are just as natural to me as dollars (finally). I love that I walk along the places that so many great men have. I love that I studied CS Lewis and read his works while sitting at the same pub where he discussed them. I love that I can hop on a bus or train and be anywhere in the UK or Europe in a flash. I love that I know the whole city like the back of my hand: the best pub, coffee place, inexpensive clothes, tea place, library. I love that I have spots and niches where I feel like I belong. I guess that's it. I belong in this city. I'm not just a tourist, but I'm a part of it. I walk down the cobblestone road, hat on head, backpack full of Bodleian books on my back, and I actually get to be an Oxford student. It will be hard to leave a place that has become so much a home.

The Tree Outside My Window

The rutted spine of the trunk
Curves into a sponged sky
Diffusing to branched nerves
That feel at blankness of clouds

A scarred shell of bark
Thick coils of wood winding
Up to brittle stems webbed
Higher than a spider’s range.

The dim arrival of twilight etches
Its figure onto a pallid canvas
And wisp ends of branches are
Bleached out by the gray