Waiting in the Car With Lowry

Whilst sitting in the car park today
of the local supermarket,
I began to feel something
of what Lowry must have felt
as he sat in the Mancunian chill,
pencil and pad desparately trying
to capture everyday life
in the steel trap of its pages.

And the he was there with me,
sitting in the passenger seat.
His cloth cap was pulled low,
spindly legs jammed against my dash,
sketch book and pencil poised.

But he tucked his pencil behind his ear,
pushed his pad into the inside pocket
of his greatcoat.
He folded his arms in a gesture of refusal.

Where are the chimneys of labour,
their grey smoke struggling
into a smog choked sky? He asked.
I paint the ties that bind people
but they avoid each other with hoods
and deliberate noise, he says.

And at that point I realised
that I had – moments earlier
- felt nothing of his appreciation
of such scenes.

I watched him walk away.
A stooping question mark of man,
in a world that had forgotten the answer.