Liz Jenkin Realms of Loss
I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, eyesI wonder if It weighs like MineOr has an Easier size. ***
The Grieved - are many - I am toldThere is the various CauseDeath - is but one - and comes but onceAnd only nails the eyes -
There’s Grief of Want - and grief of ColdA sort they call “Despair”There’s Banishment from native EyesIn sight of Native Air -
And though I may not guess the kindCorrectly - yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary -
To note the fashions - of the CrossAnd how they’re mostly wornStill fascinated to presume That Some - are like my ownEmily Dickinson (1862) I measure every Grief I meet (extract)
Pressed by the Moon, mute arbitress of tides, While the loud equinox its power combines, The sea no more its swelling surge confines, But o’er the shrinking land sublimely rides. The wild blast, rising from the western cave, Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed; Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead, And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!
With shells and sea-weed mingled, on the shore, Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave; But vain to them the winds and waters rave; They hear the warring elements no more:
While I am doomed, by life’s long storm oppressed, To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.
Charlotte Turner Smith
There, where the rusty iron lies, The rooks are cawing all the day. Perhaps no man, until he dies, Will understand them, what they say.
The evening makes the sky like clay. The slow wind waits for night to rise. The world is half content. But they
Still trouble all the trees with cries, That know, and cannot put away, The yearning to the soul that flies From day to night, from night to day.
Charles Hamilton Sorley (1915) Rooks
I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by.
I walked, with other souls in pain, Within another ring, And was wondering if the man had done A great or little thing, When a voice behind me whispered low, “That fellow’s got to swing.”
Dear Christ! the very prison walls Suddenly seemed to reel, And the sky above my head became Like a casque of scorching steel; And, though I was a soul in pain, My pain I could not feel.
Wondrous is this masonry, broken by the Fates; the fortifications have given way, the buildings raised by giants are crumbling. ***
The owners and builders are perished and gone, held fast in the earth’s embrace, the ruthless clutch of the grave, while a hundred generations of mankind have passed away.
Unknown (8th Century)
O Thou, to whom in the olden times was raised Yon ample Mound, not fashion’d to display An artful structure, but with better skill Piled massive, to endure through many an age, How simple, how majestic is thy tomb! When temples and when palaces shall fall, And mighty cities moulder into dust, When to their deep foundations Time shall shake The strong-based pyramids, shall thine remain Amid the general ruin unsubdued, Uninjured as the everlasting hills, And mock the feeble power of storms and Time.
William Crowe
Abodes of men irregularly massed
Like trees in forests, - spread through spacious tracts.
O’er which the smoke of unremitting fires
Hangs permanent, and plentiful as wreaths
Of vapour glittering in the morning sun.
And, wheresoe’er the traveller turns his steps
He sees the barren wilderness erased, Or disappearing ***
I grieve, when on the darker side
Of this great change I look; and there behold
Such outrage done to nature as compels
The indignant power to justify herself; Yea, to avenge her violated rights.
For England’s bane.
William Wordsworth (1814)The Excursion (extract)
They were ours as a gift
But never to keep
As they close their eyes
Forever to sleep
Unknown (n.d.)
Don’t Cry For The Horses (extract)
Delve into the multifaceted theme of loss through the transformative lens of infrared photography. From the profound ache of losing a loved one to the poignant erosion of heritage and culture, this collection of ethereal photographs explores the intangible nature of loss and invites us to contemplate our personal and collective experiences.
@infraredcornwall
Website
www.lizjenkin.wixsite.com/infraredcornwall