I tend to scry in dusty shops
and in forgotten attics, where old pictures
wait their resurrection in my eyes;
I want so much to look behind them,
move through the layered images of days and years
stored like some overlapped transparencies
that never fade.
It's true enough; brown paper-shrouded mystery
makes all surreal, though one may understand
that well before the light rebounded to the lens
the old and somber bearded men
already knew they would not smile again.
They are complete; I am compelled
to gaze upon these yellowed images,
and like Ezekiel see sinews,
flesh,
a verity retracing time,
and placing my own pre-incarnate plane
inside.
It is as if I am a traveler,
yet strange before the womb that bore me,
far away, between a land I knew
and one where I am known
.
I know these silent men, for I am one with them.
They are my own.
~
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1 comment:
Your poem took me back to a few years ago when I was tracing my family tree. I too looked through many old pictures of ancestors, and felt so much like I was looking at myself.
It gave me a longing to be able to talk with them. If I could only speak to them, perhaps I could learn yet more about myself as well as more about them.
The experience gave me a feeling that is somewhat of a paradox, for not only was the uniqueness of myself enforced, but also the fact that I am a total of so many thousands that lived before me. Being unique but yet interconnected.
A poem, in my judgement, can be judged a good poem by how much it actually 'speaks' to me. This poem spoke volumes.
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