Photosynthesis

The city this morning was heartbreakingly beautiful. Puffy clouds and air so fresh you could drink it (I seem to have a thing about this). I detoured, went gliding down Broad Street and curled up St. Giles so that I could buy a sandwich and a pastry from a cheerful woman. Traffic, thick traffic, all the way towards town, but the roads away from town were clear and the city in spite of the traffic still had that air of Easter emptiness. I saw a girl in a striped shirt-dress and boots pedalling towards the Bodleian, her basket laden with bags and books, and thought how lovely it would be to have woken up early just to work in a library, to come out into the sun at intervals like a young stalk needing to photosynthesize, to maybe have tea later at the Vaults & Gardens cafe, outside in the graveyard where the chairs overlook tombs and flowers and the yellow-bodied dome of the Radcliffe Camera.