Under the Arches

A marsh meadow beside a river in London at dawn in early summer, mist over wet grass and reeds, behind it bare brick railway arches with an open workshop under one, a wooden tool chest and stacked laths, on the grass a small triplane, three stacked wings in translucent yellowish ochre covering with the ribs glowing through, a smaller triplane tail behind, between them an open triangular lattice fuselage of thin dark battens and wires, at the front a small bare engine and a long narrow two-blade propeller of light brown wood, two bicycle wheels with wire spokes on dark tubes, a hand in a rolled shirt sleeve swinging the propeller.