Found object / old wounds

My friend Christine, aka Trekmum, posted a picture on Facebook today which reminded me strikingly of this picture which I think I took in the autumn of 1978 with my Zenith E camera (the first serious camera I ever owned).

A few years later I found the photo which stirred memories and I wrote a poem.

Today the memories were stirred again. So I found the photo and the poem.

Above is the photo, below is the poem:

Print:

I had been feeding pigeons
That afternoon,
Only months after she’d left,
October it must’ve been
The light so brilliant and blue.
I wished I’d worn my gloves.
These two
Walked so close together.
I fell from scattering to steal
This print.
Whoever they were.

I remember the afternoon,
Bright and bitter.
The trees hard stuck into the earth,
Like twisted barbs in the earth,
Shadows streaming from wounds.
We used to go there often.

All clear and windy in black and white,
Perhaps slightly under-exposed.

And these two
Intimate
And walking away.

It must be years now.


Christopher Little (1984)
Published in “The Eye.”