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.
