'Coming' by Philip Larkin

This poem has a very close association with a specific place (and annual event) for me. 

 For the last (and best) years of my professional life, I worked from the Fairfield Clinic for twelve years. 

 At the end of January, coming out of the front door sometime after 5 o'clock, on clear evenings the chimneys and deep red brick upper floors of the houses across the road were brilliantly lit - above the laurel bush and thrush. as in the poem - and made me feel brilliantly alive and expectant for the new year ahead. 

 I dedicate the poem to all the doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, mental health workers and associated professionals who made the job so rewarding - if always challenging. 

 Thank you for your patience, understanding, indulgence, forgiveness - and all the companionship and fun.

 

 COMING

 On longer evenings
Light, chill and yellow,
Bathes the serene
Foreheads of houses.
A thrush sings,
Laurel-surrounded
In the deep bare garden,
Its fresh-peeled voice
Astonishing the brickwork.
It will be spring soon
It will be spring soon -
And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene 
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.


Philip Larkin
Feb 1950




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