Recently I took a trip to Hill House, a trove of Mackintosh design and architecture hidden up the back of Helensburgh, with my writing group. We hoped by walking round in such a historical atmosphere that we would be inspired to write and indeed I was.
The following poem is inspired by Hill House and portraits of its past owners, Walter and Anna Blackie.
The Once Owners of Hill House
Dancing, spinning shadows on the ceiling
of rooms crisply black and white
with hints of hues – pink, purple, never yellow.
Uninvited visitors roam the halls
peeking into past lives.
The dining room is empty
of its once welcome guests.
The patriarch and the matriarch
are all who are left behind,
waiting and watching from the walls.
In the dim light of this house in a cage,
the lady, she is only half there.
She has turned her cheek to intruders
(as she no doubt did to the artist),
face tilted down at the book in hand,
reading the same page for eternity.
The master, with a smile, he surveys
the table vacant of crockery and cutlery
and those stepping through to peruse.
Without a flame, he emits warmth
despite being perpetually denied
a single satisfying smoke from his pipe.
When we leave to wander the halls once more,
they stay and stay ever unchanged,
in the same room in the same house,
preserved on the panelled walls,
snared in that same moment of time.
Mikaela Walker - Writer 