BRIEF SUMMARY: It describes three stages in the passage of time. First Stage it shows the poet's mother standing at the beach,enjoying holiday with her two cousins. She was around 12 years old at that time. The second stage takes us twenty or thirty years later. The mother would laugh at the way she and her COusins were dressed up for the beach holiday. In the third stage, the poet remembers the dead mother with a heavy heart. The Photograph revives a nostalgic feeling in the poet. STANZAWISE EXPLANATION OF THE POEM STANZA 1 "The cardboard shows me how it was When the two girl cousins went padding, Each one holding one of my mother's hands, And she the big girl- some twelve years or so. MEANINGS cardboard :very stiff paperboard on which the photograph was pasted paddling :walking through shallow water in bare feet big girl: mother is referred to as the big girl as she was the eldest among the three girls Explanation : An old photograph of the poer's mother which was p
