Powder Down Photograph
look upon I— the perching heron waded in your pond's turquoise shadows,plucking from its depths sustenance: a fish of indiscriminate species, entrapped
in my beak, stuffed in as a present too large for its wrapper.
you circle the water, admire my ashen limbs, remember the colours; "a most beautiful
moment." my movements are captured in a Polaroid photograph
left to fade under sunlight and rain.
two years later, when you search your album for wedding photos, a sliver of memory
missing will taunt you, and from its abyss I will ask: "was I not worth
remembering?" and you will say: "our moment stays with me, forever and always."
yet, I know the secret of cameras, set to capture in stillness the voice
of time, unheard and unspoken. a private insurance against
our collective amnesia.
the shoreline washes clean each season, the sun grows dimmer; small eyes
glide across coal feathers from behind aspen trees. instead, last winter,
you have migrated away, unable to witness my statuesque form, divorced
from our momentary entanglements and the shutter of your apparatus.
in the face of changing weather, my seduction has failed: one of many to escape my grasp as
salmon rushing downstream.
ten years later, my visage is fickle, its image torn in two and left to the squalls,
an impressionist painting of incomplete form, a bird and its water. from the sky I will ask: "do you
still recall?" a nod of agreement. "each frame is silent, my memory talks;
each image stands, my memory walks. It is best I left yours behind, dear heron—
lest I project on a faulted canvas the splash of your talons, or the glint
in your eyes under sable rainclouds."
dew grows heavy on my wings: a thousand instances here and there
of reaching in waves, tempestuous and calm. "if you were to project your heart's flame
on my photo, might you see a shadowshow fluttering before you? in a grand ball
where past echoes and art waltz, discomfort must follow: a brutal affair
between the dead and living, a bloodied kiss of desire, a thing to you most worthy
of leaving behind. are you satisfied with
what attention you paid?"
Apr. 04, 2024
the path forward seems to go back,
the direct path seems long,
true power seems weak,
true purity seems tarnished,
true steadfastness seems changeable,
true clarity seems obscure,
the greatest art seems unsophisticated,
the greatest love seems indifferent,
the greatest wisdom seems childish.
