Old photographs can be powerful triggers for our memory. In
Sharon
Olds' poem "I Go Back to May 1937", a photograph of her
parents at the start of their relationship, viewed through the eyes
of the poet - omniscient through the passage of time - feels a desire
to go back and tell them to reconsider their love. The thought is
interesting, but Olds' resolution is even more so.
Select a photograph - your parents, relatives, a historic figure,
old boyfriend or girlfriend, even yourself - and use it as a starting
point. The photograph should appear, in some form, in the
poem.
Of Us
when I was a child there was a thing we did
every year at Christmas
and one year there was a picture of
us laughing, me in the stocking
and Grandpa smiling at his present...
me in an oversized stocking
and Grandma, looking off,
looking impatient, looking gone
it's eerie to see it now...
he and I looking so amused
in velvet and flannel
and she looking like she knew,
like she knew she was leaving,
like a cool wind across my life
and it was too sad to see
her looking like she knew we were blind
and that we were wasting her time
and I guess she was right but...
we were only children
laughing in velvet and flannel
I guess I'll hold on to that
and hope I don't lose sleep tonight
I guess I'll hold on to that
because I couldn't hold on to her
A square of sunlight now,
the high window
through which I watch
framed clouds traverse
my sky, individualized
by that focus, that frame
which isolates them
from the wide confusion.
Beside my desk, your photo -
eye caught in a wink,
smile playing with the left
corner of lips, dimple
in cheek almost there.
A rectangle of sun,
black and white,
glistens on my wall.
Those two rather longish front windows
to the left of the beveled glass doors
belonged to our flat on Grove Street.
Eight years old and dragging home
from 3rd grade drudgery
I would catch sight of her there -
the pulled-back curtain making
a veil for her forlorn face
which just cleared the sill.
Forgetting for a moment what
a miserable, trouble-making pest she was
my heart would leap up to hug her
before my feet even hit the vestibule.
Photographs dont lie
but they dont tell the truth either.
There are photographs of me as a child
that are of a time
that for me does not exist.
They could be photographs of some other boy
or the twin my mother thought she was having.
There are photographs of us together
that are from a time
that for us no longer exists.
They could be photographs of some other woman,
but they are not.
They dont lie.
They dont tell the truth.
Hand-tinted portraits try to bring you out
of black and white time but Grandfather, your Prussian
blue
suit is of the time and Grandmother, your dress too,
now Venetian red was perhaps once bold
alizarin crimson or red rose deep hue, at least in this
photograph, though in that once studio it may have been
burnt umber and the photographer told you to select
a color, holding out a palette, any color, it's a
photograph,
you may be anything you wish, you looked at
Grandfather
and said maybe this red? and he laughed a small
laugh,
you would never wear a dress like that, you turned
away
so he continued so I say, yes, and for me this fine
blue,
Then you walked back home and each of you thought
about the portrait. And during the week that followed
you began to doubt but already the photographer
was cutting the oval matte to fit the frame and when you
sent Grandfather back to pick it up alone he paid without
comment.
That night, before bed, the two of you took one last look and
then
you rewrapped them in the brown paper and retied the
string
and put them away until I ran my hand over them today and
looked
at my fingers because I thought, like some oil pastel, I would see
some
thing there, but there was only the dusty Payne's gray of
years
and a background that was faux even for you.
I see
A woman
in her twenties.
She stands on a rise
they call hogbacks
in that part of Colorado.
The image flickers
in shaky 8 millimeter.
I see
the pleated
red bandanna print
skirt circle her slim legs.
In the fashion of the fifties
the black bodice is fitted,
sleeveless, scoopnecked,
waist cinched in
patent leather.
Pale arms cross
and she looks,
at what,
her round face framed
by a mane of wavy hair
dark as the belt.
She has blue eyes.
I cant see the color
but I know,
as I know her name
and where she was born.
The moment remains hers,
caught in that loop
of obsolete celluloid,
stored in its cardboard box.
Joan Reilly DeRosa
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