I don't know you
but I see your face, in black and white
and brown and grey
and yellowed paper,
torn, frayed
I don't know your name
But your pen has etched words between pages,
half-read, half-wondered,
smoothly curlicued
Hello there!
and Muskaka Avenue
I don't know you,
but there are weddings, deaths
communion, baptism,
flowers
I don't know your name
but there's someone smiling
up from brittle pages,
and a tiny television set, brand new
and black and white,
just the way I see you
Who was behind the lens
or whatever they used
Whose care and patience accomplished
preserving images, pressed, glued
stuck there in a thick book,
stuck in my mind
And besides all this, I wonder,
why?
I hold your memories,
borrowing for a time...
I find the clues in the grey-hue
and perhaps one day they'll lead to you
But why is it me who, by chance,
looks upon them and some days may laugh
because of some lucky happenstance?
It is such greater gift for glance
of your life in photographs
Comments
Wow, that was truly amazing,
Wow, that was truly amazing, and just how I feel when I look at old photographs.
"You were not meant to fit into a shallow box built by someone else." -J. Raymond
I love old pictures...I don't
I love old pictures...I don't know, there's just something really melencholy about seeing a picture of a little child from way back then, and thinking: 'Who knows if they're even still alive?' My grandpa sent us a box of really old books that he had bought, and in one of the books there was an old picture, really tiny, of a girl. It was neat. I like your poem a lot!
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The best stories are those that are focused, unassuming, and self-confident enough to trust the reader to figure things out. --
http://lauraeandrews.blogspot.com/2014/05/dont-tell-me-hes-smart.html
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This is just a gorgeous poem!!! This poem well describes the beautiful photographs of long ago and the sadness of "Where are the people who loved them?" You did a wonderful, wonderful job!!!
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The Holy Spirit is the quiet guest of our soul." -St. Augustine
thnx
Thanks everyone :) I just want to say that I dedicate this poem to whoever is in the mysterious old picture album I have...
(PS Elizabeth, the Salamander is on the list now! ;D)
Love it!
it's so pretty!!! I just love everthing about it. it's just..so...so...beautiful.
(I miss you!)
oops...
sorry for posting twice.
This was a cool poem and a
This was a cool poem and a very cool concept. Just a couple weeks ago I found an old photograph in a garbage can near my grandparents' house. It's in terrible shape, but the faces are still perfectly clear. The photo is backed with a sheet of newspaper, dated June 26, 1903. I just have to wonder: who are the eleven people so beautifully captured and preserved? And "Why is it me who, by chance, looks upon them and some days may laugh because of some lucky happenstance?"
All that was a long-winded way of saying: "Great Poem!"
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Brother: Your character should drive a motorcycle.
Me: He can't. He's in the wilderness.
Brother: Then make it a four-wheel-drive motorcycle!