Poems on postcards

There is a wonderful shop in Worcester, "Snowdrop Books", which sells second hand books and also cards in aid of St. Richards Hospice. I spent a happy hour browsing there last week and bought a whole selection of postcards, with illustrations that vary from the creatures in Beatrix Potter stories to a French illuminated manuscript - not to send to anybody or to decorate my walls, but to write poems on!

When I've got a big piece of work underway it's sometimes nice to "turn off" for a while and just write a few lines or a paragraph or two of something different. I find the correspondence space on the back of a postcard ideal for a mini-saga or a short poem inspired by the picture. I was quite moved by one of the cards I bought last week -  of a marriage quilt worked by a young woman in Allendale in 1860 and now on display at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle. The following lines, hopefully written in the style of the time, fit neatly on the back of it.

         Marriage Quilt

        She stitched in youthful love and hope,

        then brought it, the dutiful wife,

        to the conjugal bed they shared throughout

        their fifty year married life.

        It felt the weight of shawl and shroud,

        it knew sickness, passion, pain;

        now gently it covers her still, silent form

        as she takes leave of her home once again.

(Copyright Gill Garrett 2014)