Looking Back

browsing old photographs

of my birthplace

everything in black and white

my grandparents’ time,

cameras still a new thing,

street urchins and working folk

pose inquisitively, nonchalantly

in weekday clothing,

that would look smart today,

in the distance perspective

pales to a ghostly grey,

I recognise no-one but

it is comforting to know

a century or more later that people

with the same surnames

as the passive mannequins

staring back at me

still walk the same streets,

Published by grahamrsherwood