It is a delicate thing, shaken out until visible:

jubilant moments taken at the very peak of rapture

or the depths of sorrows preserved in amber,

glimpses into a past that fade far slower

than our fragile memories do,

even well-thumbed and yellow.

To tell a story in a thousand words,

never lifting a pen;

instead, to show and let my subjects speak

in silence, yet their own faces, own words.

For the very best capture things

not only as they are,

but in landscape and background and framing

more honest than a half-remembered fable.

So powerful, the very presence of them

changes our eyes’ perception of the world.

Arms spread before an army—

A fist upraised in solidarity and pride—

First steps on a world so pondered at in poetry—

Starvation and a vulture—

Dust clinging to a careworn woman—

Guns and fire that mark our cruelty—

A man of purpose and a spinning wheel—

Roses and mountains tendered with love—

The powerful and the ordinary,

the expression of the human soul,

all mingled as impressions on paper,

each as unique and precious

as a grain of sand in the hourglass of Time.