Fujifilm X-T2, Poetry, Street Photography
by Patrick Jennings

The Wash Beneath the Detailed Lines

Gridlock, Chandni Chowk Market, Old Delhi district, New Delhi, India
I close my eyes
Imagining
A downtown core
And city lights

Cabs stacked up
End to end
Filled with fares
Or seeking them

Crowded shops
Pedestrians
Littered streets
Swept clean by morn’

So full of life
Activity
This crowded block
Where could it be

Is this New York
Or is it Tokyo
London Town
Or ‘gay Paris’

At the core
They’re all the same
Though expressed
Quite differently

To understand
I keep in mind
The wash beneath
The detailed lines

From it context
From it texture
While lines divide
Draw us apart

Open my eyes
Take it all in
Old Delhi streets
Humanity

Find the beauty
Of each of us
In the details
Of our differences

Gridlock
Chandni Chowk Bazaar
Old Delhi
New Delhi, India

Taken during travels, 2017

I am one of those “crush of humanity” people. I love being deep inside a mass gathering humanity. There’s a telling kind of energy in a crowd, and the larger the crowd the closer that energy approaches a kind of elemental universal. A sense of “oneness” emerges. We are all the same; we are all one.

Does it seem ironic that when I’m most conscious of this oneness that it becomes easiest to see — and celebrate — the staggering beauty in all the distinct ways we express our being, our humanity?