Balls

Dull and drizzly, Jazzy and I didn't spot anything interesting to photograph on our walk. :(

I read The Ball Poem by John Berryman first thing and I'm not keen on it. It's about a child losing his ball, representing the loss of childhood and innocence I think. It's not surprising that Berryman's poetry is dark, his father shot himself when John was 12 and his mother married a Mr Berryman just two months later. John himself married three times and his alcoholism was a trial to his wives. He leapt to his death from a bridge.

With nothing to blip I decided to photograph the tip of a ball-point pen. I felt like going out for a while so went in search of "Short Stort Thoughts" a sculpture in the form of three orbs by Graeme Mitcheson at Burnt Mill lock. I couldn't locate them at first and everyone I asked had never heard of them. They were hiding in plain sight near the lock owing to weathering.  They were designed to show the link that the Stort Navigation has provided between Harlow and the rest of the world.

So I thank John Berryman for today's theme, I'm quite pleased with how my pics tie in with the verse. John could have written it using a ball-point and the eponymous ball was lost in a harbour with its fish, ropes and chains.