A line of old lanterns

We had another snoop around the outbuildings of the  crumbling old mansion I blipped here.

These buildings would once have been domestic utilities for the gentry family that occupied the house 200 years ago. Later, they served as farm sheds and stores as the occupancy of the house slid down the social scale.

Here, among other interesting remnants jumbled together with crumbling masonry under the fractured roof, hang a set of oil lamps that would once have been essential for any outdoor task on a winter's evening or early morning: feeding the animals, bringing in firewood, getting water or checking security.

When I was a small child we had no electric lighting indoors or out. Paraffin lamps were the norm and had to be filled each morning ready for the night, the wicks trimmed and care taken not to smash the glass. My mother would boast of the occasion when she tumbled downstairs while carrying a lighted lamp but ended up at the bottom still holding it, intact.

I wondered if there was a poem about lanterns that I could quote and searching for 'lantern poems' I found that there is in fact a Japanese verse form akin to a haiku called - yes! - a lantern poem by virtue of its shape. It requires a one-syllable noun (the subject) in the first line, then the next three lines should be two, three and four syllables successively, describing the noun, and finally a one-syllable synonym for the subject.

Here's my effort at a lantern poem but I can't find a way to line it up symmetrically so you're just have to imagine that.  

      Lamps
     Waiting
    Forgotten
Gleaming no more
      Lights


It was a misty but very mild afternoon when we went out walking. The shrill bleating of infant lambs rent the air on all sides and the hedges were alive with birds twittering at the prospect of spring.  Note that the middle lamp has a swallows' nest glued to the wall above it. It won't be long before its owners return to take possession again.