I like to capture the passing of the seasons with my camera. My daughter’s preferred medium is poetry. Last summer I took a picture of her and her best friend Georgia lying on our lawn among the forget-me-nots. So here is my photograph, and Ella’s poem!

we’ve collapsed in the forget-me-nots.
you say that you can’t remember
the last time it’s been this warm.
i say that i don’t want
to forget this;

and so we catch the moment, pressing
it carefully as a blossom or a bruise.

you archive shuttering laughter onto film
in ribbons, smiles tied up in strings
of negatives. undeveloped. you wait
for colour to bloom.

i commit all this blue to memory, but the whisper
of flowers against my skin tells me i’ll never
have the words for this; the two of us,
a double exposure in the half light.

you say that time is blurring out of focus.
you say that you’re losing track of minutes.
i say not minutes but hours or lifetimes.
i say we’ve spent lifetimes existing in blue.

you fill another lifetime with silences unspoken.
the apertures of your eyes wink shut. and softly—
i hum a song i can’t quite remember learning
as the words rest, half-forgotten on my lips.

Ella