Lockdown's creative surge continues

The lockdown brings with it plenty of difficulties, but there can also be opportunities – not least to think about things. 

I’ve already explained briefly here that for me, it has produced an entirely unexpected creative burst, as I have found myself writing poetry for the first time in decades.

In the last couple of days, remembering old family photographs uncovered when clearing my parents’ home two years ago this summer, I found that a couple of the pictures made me want to talk about them.

Or to put another way, I felt that I wanted to write about some of them, to build a picture in a different way. The photographs themselves will be included, because this is – hopefully – one thing complimenting another.

Before

Snow-dumped fells blur

Into snow-filled skies;

Drifts arc up from the road

Like a pitted bobsleigh track.

She stands in the middle distance,

To the bottom left.

Perspective,

deceptive,

has a black hedge tower over her,

Drawing the eye

and accidentally lending the shot

                        good composition.

The slide was colour but

Winter and time have leached that.

Blow it up and there is no trace

of a smile

in the smudge of a face.

Booted, with feet turned out

(Later, she’d say not to stand that way).

Stockings beneath a dress or skirt,

She relies for warmth on a big coat,

collar up

And hands hidden in gloves or overlong sleeves.  

Her hair is tucked away, queen-like, beneath a scarf.

Further off, two men in caps

            clear the road.

It was December ’62 and

The snow that had snowed

            would be followed by plenty more;

And, just a few days later,

            By me.

23 May 2020