A Camera Has The Trick Of Freezing Time Poem by Pete Crowther

A Camera Has The Trick Of Freezing Time

Rating: 4.2


The photo’s small and rather creased but there
We are, a family group in black and white.
A camera has the trick of freezing time.
We’re posed before a boat outside our house,
It is to be a sort of caravan
For holidays. It has a cabin newly built
Upon a hull that’s often sailed the Humber.
Each one of us is smiling in the sun.
The cabin’s shadow says it’s afternoon,
The trees’ and hedgerow’s leaves proclaim it spring.

The War is over now. My father’s home
On leave and looks relaxed. My mother’s pleased,
I remember how she wept and prayed for him
On D-Day when his coaster carried troops
And petrol to the beach at Normandy.
My grandad stands erect and rather stiff,
And grandma, too, sits very upright, posed,
For both were born in Queen Victoria’s reign.
Their daughter, Eileen, looks so young. I think
She misses wartime dances and romances.

And is that me, that boy with folded arms
And hair as fair as any Anglo-Saxon?
I cannot now recall what I was thinking then,
What it was like to be a boy of ten,
Now that my hair is grey and I’ve grown old
And all those people in that photograph
Are talking, laughing, drinking, full of life
Within my head though fifty years and more
Have passed, and all of them are long since dead.
A camera has the trick of freezing time.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Sandy G 18 November 2004

a camera has the trick of freezing time, just like words have the trick of freezing experience, and sometimes, of freezing imagination!

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Amberlee Carter 12 January 2005

your words make an interesting camera in this piece..For a moment I was there...good writing

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Philippa Lane 18 March 2005

I found this poem very touching. A snapshot of a family...it underlined for me the importance of families. I liked the way you wrote it.

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Raynette Eitel 17 May 2005

At first glance, this poem seems simple; yet the scenes you chose to display, like what a photographer does when he aims his camera, are important, even after fifty years. Thanks for letting us have a look! Raynette

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Lynn Cowman 13 June 2005

Such a Picture Too, that you have given us here, I like how you have described what you see, so that we too may see the picture, that the camera has frozen in time... Lynn ~

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Richard Dates 06 January 2022

I've seen these kinds of photo. Sometimes they are hard to view...yet the bring those sweet-sad memories.

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Brian Jani 29 June 2014

cameras are one of the greatest inventions.they changed life as we know iy

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Original Unknown Girl 05 October 2006

What a lovely read Peter..... thanks for your comments on mine! It was Cave Castle actually! ! One much closer to home! : -) Humber Girl x

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Scarlett Treat 05 February 2006

How many times have I wondered, 'Was my hair really that dark? ' or 'Was my mother ever young? ' and the frozen pieces of time help this old mind to remember. How marvelous to see your family in my mind, and to know that little blond haired boy! Linda

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Lee Tran 30 October 2005

You captured it like a National Geographic journalist with these details of family and life in general...Beautifully penned Mr. Crowther! !

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Pete Crowther

Pete Crowther

Hull, East Yorkshire, England
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