POETRY: Lines written of an Oil Painting of Skiddaw

FOREWORD

Passing through town yesterday, I spotted an oil painting hung in the window which stirred something in me. The journeys to and from University and my home in Cockermouth would take us through a route in the lakes, passing through Keswick, Grasmere, Ambleside, and Windermere. I’ve seen the hills and lakes of that journey countless times in my life, but I never get sick of them. The painting in the window, however, was of Skiddaw and Derwentwater; more specifically, a particular part of Derwentwater that would always catch my eye where a fence submerges into the water. I was never sure if that was part of some design, the purpose of which eluded me, or whether it was an old barrier that had been waterlogged through the natural growth of the lake.



What I wanted to get across in the poem was the emotion of comfort that the painting brought to me. Skiddaw has been a presence I felt through my childhood. Skiddaw was the mount of home, one of the circle of mountains that enclose the town. The sight of it would always signify a journey’s end, but, in later years, it would also signify a journey’s beginning as I embarked on an academic career. Now I’m setting up a home outside of Cockermouth, to have something which stirs this emotion makes the house seem more homely. The oil painting itself is by the wonderfully tallented John Wood. Whilst I'm ashamed to admit that, three bent nails and some grumbling later it was my girlfriend who hung the painting, not I, the piece has pride of place in my living room.




Lines Written of an Oil Painting of Skiddaw

It was a landscape seen and never touched,
but driven past at 60. Fence posts flicker
like film reel, surrounding the lake’s body:
oft calm, oft vapid sheen of sky’d water,
within which the once-cited lofty heights
of Skiddaw loom both bold and earthen brown.


There, captured with canvas and oil, descends
that weather-worn, inconsequential fence,
submerging in its depths at twisted slant
whilst overlooked by that stark mount of home.
That soon-gone scene was pledged to catch my eye,
Each time, coming or going, we drive by.


That mount of home, ambassador of calm,
a symbol of both voyage and return.
A million, million places in the world
could not imitate the emotions stirred
by this sight in me: sign of home nearing;
home departing; of venture yet to come.

Michael Kilburn
2009