Almost perfect (especially in the off season.) Early afternoon sunshine reflects from the cottages, villas and boats in the beautiful harbour of Polperro, Cornwall, England.

Commentary.

 

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

fishermen’s granite cottages, one perch wide,

rough, weathered, functional and small,

bounded by lumpy, uneven cobbled paths.

 

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,

cottages extended up, down, left, right, in front and behind.

Whitewashed, mod cons, satellite dishes,

internet access, window boxes, gardens, paved and tarmac access.

 

The neat, tidy, clean, sanitised modern dwellings

bear little resemblance

to the fishing village settlement

of former generations.

 

Hotels and restaurants replaced

the inns and bothies.

Gift shops and tearooms stand in

for fishmongers, butchers and ironmongers.

 

Motors replaced sails,

the ubiquitous automobile has foregone the horse and cart.

Boats are for lazing on,

not now, for hauling in another hard-earned catch.

 

The credit card of tourists,

enjoying the now docile scene,

has paid for the landed fish of yesteryear,

accounted for in lives and a few shillings.

 

Is this progress?

Of course, but in any August the beauty of Polperro,

makes it a victim of its own success…

a dichotomy that makes me love this place, no less!

 

 

Done