Hidden Gems
The old man with the long grey beard sits at the entrance to The Lanes, he’ll be in a different doorway tomorrow, we watch and wonder at his passion for paper folding, muted sheets of coloured paper create the fragile landscape set out on the dull grey pavement.
His agile fingers make tiny masterpieces from memory, lodged in the back of his mind as casual bystanders, with conventional orderly lives pause – a flower, a bird, a deer, a carefully woven box with a neatly fitted lid.
The handwritten notice says ‘please take one and make a donation’, my hand picks a tiny white bird, my pound falls into the hat but the old man with the long grey beard is disinterested in the transaction, his scissors still snipping
Ann Perrin 