Holding On

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL:  In the middle of October I returned to  Lonaconing, Maryland, and the silk mill where the past clings like dust.  I was joined by two friends from the first trip and three friends from Connecticut, and we photographed one afternoon and the next morning, four hours each shoot.

Holding on: The mill is holding on, but not quite.  Though it has been under six months since we photographed the silk mill last, the building was in noticeably worse condition. Where armies of buckets caught drips, the roof has begun to fail and temporary posts have been inserted to support what's left of the roof.  There must have been a mess to clean, but you can't clean antiques. The spinning machines are still in place but missing beneath them is the clutter and the patina of age. It is as if someone had just dragged a damp sponge across a picture, wiped away decades, smudged dusty memories. More importantly, the fix is short term. The factory is letting go, though we could still almost hear the gossip and  footstaps in the old stair. and try to turn whispers to photographs.

Winding & Twisting

But for the bobbin boy

and the machinist,

on the third floor

the winders were all women.

That's just the way it was.

For fifty years

river of steps

up and down

and fifty more

when the stairs creaked

though no one passed,

- shoes and umbrellas

on the third floor,

forgotten

and the lift stuck in the middle.

no reeling or coning there,

by the steamers,

nor the men downstairs 

through the night,

twisting.