After my father died there was a terrible silence,
We searched for memories,
One day someone sent a painting he had done
Back to us.
A nocturne in the true style of Whistler,
My father was a great admirer of Whistler.
He studied under Sickert though.
A small painting, ten by eight,
It took up very little space,
The moonlit scene was calm:
Some lights, a moon, no trees a distance town
Hardly a fence, the top of some small hut,
Perhaps a river or some such flickering light,
The colours few,
A little yellow, mostly blue,
His signature diminutive a little quaint,
Almost hidden in the paint.
And on the back someone had written”Karlsruhe,”
painted while prisoner of war
After Cambrai 1917.
Caroline Baldock©1980