Cheryl Garner 2013
She had a thought: that sky was true,
That sky was blue as eyes, as deep
As weeping in a loveless home:
Not cold, but crystalline it shone.
She had a thought: those lines were meant
As purpose, point and route to run,
Another means to fake escape,
Until the next direction pulled.
She had a thought: of someone trapped
As everybody else was trapped,
But who would see her questions asked,
By fists she formed as stations passed.
Her music played, the sky was sky,
She had a thought and let it die.
Journal Entry (19/11/1998)
Trivial details can release a whole range of associations, if they find a language. Some details, if approached incorrectly, remain stubborn, introverted, secretive. It is not that, of themselves, they are necessarily unconnected, simply that they have not been allowed the space and time and words to become what they could be.
People dream on trains: of escape, of love, of change, of being. They are a means of transport to somewhere else. They are melancholic. We sit and watch the world, move through it in sadness and contemplation. I love you. I feel you coming to me in every breath and somehow everything seems possible. I know you too will pass. That tree by the River Aire has never seemed so lost amongst its roots. I drift and play with time. Suddenly I am on a beach – could it be Brighton in spring? Or maybe it is a beach I have never been to nor ever will. The wind of a distant time blows through my hair. And I will die alone on that beach. Not sad. Not in fear. But alone.
We approach the next station. There is an old man on the platform and a couple with a dog. Only the woman gets on the train. The dog looks puzzled as only dogs can.
Photography by Cheryl Garner (2013)
Poetry by thecheesewolf (2013)
Train Journal by Gavin Jones (1998)
