Today is the thirteenth anniversary of my Mum’s death and it seems an good time to share again a poem written last year about the experience of visiting the place where she was born (Carlisle) and where her (and my)ancestors lived. During the past year I have discovered much more about our ancestors and the life they lived in Carlisle during the C19 and my past is now peopled with relatives I feel I know a little more.
This place, that time…..
Is this the place they made their vows that time?
This where her first cry was heard that day?
This the street she skipped cobbles where the weary weavers trod and men ran riot?
Here checked slave cloth and biscuits metal-boxed left by cart and boat and train
Here this place, that time, squalor was mapped and time counted in births and deaths and cholera.
And was there love?
And was there hope?
This place, that time?
That place, this time…… we sip coffee touching with finger tips and sandaled feet,
capturing lovingly with our digital eyes
the colours and shapes that time left behind,
peopling our imagination with names in black and white.
This place, this time, and that, will be……..
peopled in other imaginations through our digital eyes and theirs in their place and their time……
and there will be love and there will be hope, as there surely was
this place, that time and this…….
Liz Ross
September 2015
