By Design?

SHADOW SHOT SUNDAY
http://heyharriet.blogspot.com/

BY DESIGN?

When designers sit down at their draft-boards

Designing some humdrum affair

Like the bus-shelters seen in my picture,

(So common they're seen everywhere)

Do they ever consider the shadows

That are thrown on the ground by the light,

Saying ' Let's run this through the computer

To see if the shadows are right.'

Are the beautiful curves on the pavement,

Which rarely get one second glance,

The result of some clever designing

Or something that happens by chance?
*

---------------------------------------------------------------------

THANK YOU, ELAINE!

War-weary,
I walked home from school;
Not wounded, not bereaved,
Just a drab English schoolgirl.
Five years of war
Had meant no clothing coupons for
Frivolities.
And I was certainly frivolous.
I was fourteen.
My mother had lengthened
My older sister's dark green dress,
With strips
Of different colours at the hem,
As I grew.
I had been wearing it 'for best'
For three years now.
Otherwise I wore my navy-blue serge skirt,
White shirt and lisle stockings;
My school uniform.
Was it any wonder I dragged my satchel
Behind me
As I entered the house?
And then I stopped......
Transfixed!
*
Where are you now, Elaine?
You must be an old lady,
Like me.
I wonder if you even remember sending
The Food Parcel.
You were on the other side of the world
In America.
It seemed a place of magic
Untouched by War.
You were, briefly,
My Pen Pal.
And you had sent me a dress!
*
Never again in my whole life
Would I see mauve gingham
Without reliving
The frisson of excitement
That I felt when I first saw it.
My Mother had opened the Food Parcel
And she had found the dress
Carefully packed
On top of the biscuits and canned fruit.
She had laid it over the back of the arm-chair.
I circled it,
Disbelieving.
I think I stopped breathing.
Was it......?
Could it........?
Immediately, I fantasised
If this glorious object were really mine,
I would wear it with sky-blue sandals,
And my skinny white legs would tan.
And boys would look at me
And realise that I was beautiful!
My mother came into the room.
'Is it for…..?' I said.
It was!
It was mauve gingham,
With a frilled square neck-line,
And a skirt that flared slightly.
It was the most beautiful dress in the world.
Sixty-five years later
I say
'Thank you, Elaine.'
*