Lace Bookmark

This is one of several lace bookmarks my mum made for me. She was a perfectionist in all hand made things, and would be horrified to see me sharing such a close-up photo of it, acutely conscious of every uneven or crooked stitch, but I love and value it, because it's beautiful and functional and of course because she made it. I photographed it on the light box, to show the detail, but the colours are not true: the thread is creamy white, with pink detail. I need another version alongside it, with good light on a dark background. 

It has lived for some time in the Poem A Day anthology my parents gave me many years ago, which I keep beside the bed and often dip into before I go to sleep. This evening I had it out for the last meeting of the online poetry reading group I have been enjoying since new year with a small group of Friends from my Quaker meeting. We have shared old favourites and new discoveries on various themes - tonight's was trees, and after much indecision over Houseman, Mary Oliver and Robert Frost, I took Gerard Manley Hopkins' beautiful and poignant Binsey Poplars (felled 1879):


After-comers cannot guess the beauty been,
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet, especial scene...








The bookmark detail is for Tiny Tuesday - it's about 3  cm  wide.