Ivan Head: ‘On Burning Letters and Photographs’

On Burning Letters and Photographs

Before the Cloud there were negatives
and images emerged on paper,
ghostly from a chemical bath.

In this bonfire
I am burning old photographs
by the thousand.

Christmas cards and newsletters join them.
They lack the vision of the Burning Babe,
just saying at length which children did what this year.

Piles of blue aerograms fly into the flame.
They once crossed the world by plane,
even coming through the storm-door flap on Saturdays.

Lecture notes by the box grow dull in the garage.
I become my own aide-memoire,
imprinted as “what I became”.

The Cloud descends, the trumpet sounds.
I have time to tidy up,
to cast hard copy into the heat
or otherwise just press delete-delete.

Ivan Head