Thread City Willimantic Connecticut. The stories told by the walls and oily floors of the granite mills on the banks of the Willimantic River. Stories told with a broken English accent, French Canadian, Irish, Italian, Spanish wherever labor [people] could be brought in cheaply to work and replaced like old shoes when a new crop could be imported with that dream. Now, well 20 years ago the mill owners cashed in their Victorians on the hill for the new crop of labor was in the south and the mills sat silently telling tales of romance, hard work and the new life that had left them behind.
New London, a Royal port when the fleet was in I’m sure. I haven’t lived there, yet I am inspired by the tales of the waterfront. Bank Street bars and brawls sailors in dress whites whisper to me on the breeze that blows up the alleys from the Thames. Fewer sailors and more color as the artists move in and repaint the history of New London, with phallic subs on one side of the Thames and Viagra to keep the hard line old Admirals shooting off.
Norwich since 2001-2009 a favorite building and early coffee stop round and round, many old facades, many old boys, round and round, many new facades, round and round. Hang on to the rail change is coming, round and round.
A Muse without breasts.
Except while there I am present through out the century.
Small areas, Expansive thoughts,
Neon, a door, Life’s that
traveled Through the door
It is fictional History
You provide the memories and the ghosts!
Thank you for inviting us into the theatre of the imagination. Your reflections…ghosts…all stories of lives we might have lived.
Merci,
EBB
These are so beautiful. They have a look as if from a dream or dreams. As if on the verge of remembering another time, another world. Beautifully haunting. Inviting us to follow into “forgotten” realms.
Thank you EBB and Robin Did you get the Tree? enjoy pjc
Thanks for posting these, Peter. The mill is one of my favorites. I believe I’ve seen the actual print, and as usual, the jpg version doesn’t do it justice. People need to get out and SEE THE ART in person!
And, who knows, the mills could return. With the price of shipping our lead-based toys from China, perhaps we’ll come full circle soon, and begin manufacturing again here.
You paint a lovely history of our world.
-Leslie
Dear Peter, I just got the tree and just LOVE both poem and photo. It would make such a great print with the poem, or card. I love the feeling in the poem that we will be gone but the tree will ponder on. I felt this so much in the rainforest with the ancient old trees. Knowing they had been there LONG before I arrived and I prayed they would go on long after my passing. There is something very comforting about that for me. I love being in the presence of trees. Thank you so much for sharing it with me.
(nothing against China – poor people are underdogs everywhere, but) amen to that! No country of any significant size can thrive – or long survive – without a vibrant manufacturing industry.