Beautiful photographs captured

with digital stillness in full colour

and without enhancement

of a county

I haven’t been able to see

with my own eyes since before

we worried about the Y2K bug

and the image of the end of days,

they all float before me,

my eyes growing damp,

of a county tattooed

on my brown like skin

and the cross of St. Piran

held high upon every rugged coast line,

another country, a different place

and one that I wish I could see

one last time before my eyes close forever.

 

I hold your photographs, there on my screen,

I pause for an age and find

that the day has slipped away,

as I imagine my mother and I

walking along Mullion Cove sand

and pebbles washed clean

and round, smooth as her tomato cheek

when she kissed me goodnight,

kissed Cornwall goodbye and rarely

went beyond the Tamar again,

except to tell the orchard

at the run down cliff in my great

grandfather’s back garden

how much it was missed from her youth.

 

Thank you for taking a walk

on stranger shores today,

for in your sun burn,

skin crisp day

you have reminded me of a love

that I miss

and one that plays a sad violin solo

acoustically on my heart.

 

Inspired by the photographs of John Powell.

Ian D. Hall 2016