This was a utopian morning
25th February 2020
Past the housing place I worked in all that time ago,
Walking with my university friends,
Strikers all.
Across where the M62 didn’t arrive in Liverpool
Yet blighted what it didn’t touch.
Daffodils in the shiny winter rain
Lighting up the reciting of the ancient words of Shelter,
Words like trouble and disaster.
But this was not disaster, not this utopian morning.
This was what can be done, with time and love.
Past Eleanor Rathbone’s school,
Her first job before first at so much else,
To the Four Streets.
The last ones left after all that time,
On a utopian morning.
To see what’s left to do
And talk through the serendipity,
The hands on playful of it
And the years it’s taken, all that time.
Talking with a different Eleanor, my friend Eleanor,
And my friends from the university
In the Granby Winter Garden,
On this, a utopian morning.
This was a UCU Teach-Out Session in support of the Union’s strike. Big thanks to university colleagues Paul Jones and Abi O’Connor for the photographs. And huge thanks to Eleanor Lee and other members of the Granby 4 Streets Community Land Trust for the welcome and the inspiration x
More of my University writing is here at ‘Field Notes for Utopia.’
