Nettle's poem puts us in a school before anyone else has arrived. The speaker sits alone in the early morning, surrounded by silence and emptiness. Nothing much is there except chalk dust, heaters that give off no warmth, and ice forming outside the window. Each detail adds to a feeling of cold and neglect, as if the building itself has been left behind.
The speaker names the mood straight away with "abandonment," and the repeated line "Sitting there all alone" (and later "Sitting here all alone") drives the loneliness home. The shift from "there" to "here" is small, but it seems to move us from watching the scene to sharing it. The doubled "early early" makes the hour feel almost too early to bear. The poem ends quietly with "Scribbling my words," which suggests writing is the speaker's only company. The mood is bleak and still, though that last line hints at a small comfort in having something to do.