A luxury

'Fresh Air and Poverty' quilt at National Trust's Lyme Park. Photo Garry Lomas.

mum & dad, their luxury was each other

hardworking

quarry, breaking stone 17 years

me, spent 40 years farming, 20 driving trucks

that was my earthly career

my bed to lie in.

My mother made many beds

a woman before her time

"Living over the brush," the old ladies said.

Dad stood on a box in the hiring fair

slept above the hayloft for a year &

his sister died giving birth =

Haemorrhage

the doctor said, "You didn't pay

last time so I'm not coming."

Strife is a relationship

with others, in wartime

a luxury is to lie there & see a blaze.

Farming Life Centre

2015

From the arthur+martha project Stitching the Wars. A Two year collaboration with older people in Derbyshire, producing two embroidered quilts, a book, interviews and a series of poems. 

More poems found here. A short documentary film about the project found here.