I depart
For farther shores
In rearward glance
The past recedes
Leave behind
Mistaken thoughts
Their wrongful acts
Now turn away
Forge ahead
Find a path to better ways
I depart
For farther shores
In rearward glance
The past recedes
Leave behind
Mistaken thoughts
Their wrongful acts
Now turn away
Forge ahead
Find a path to better ways
This arc through space and time
Thirty poems yet to write
But after this
Just twenty-nine
Some days
The words may come
As if a gift
Some days a labour
Subtler beauties missed
But still the promise: words to come
Just one minaret
Towers over us
Backlit in dull amber
Through thick smoke
With casual demeanour
We mill about
As though we’ve forgotten
This place’s exalted status
It’s majesty
Now somewhat diminished
It becomes a familiar thing
The thing we’ve all seen
In the same way
Photographed from the same spot
And so you go there
And when you take the photograph
You stand in the same spot
And take the same photograph
And damn if it ain’t as beautiful
As you’ve been told it was all these years
As beautiful as all the photographs
Taken from the same damn spot
And so you say to yourself
Yep. Been there
Done the beautiful thing
Seen and photo’d the remarkable thing
So you leave
And there’s some time
So you go to another thing
And the other thing’s pretty cool too
But then…
Then you see something
Some new other thing
Through a window in the cool thing
So you go up to the window
To get better look at this new other thing
And it takes you a minute
‘Cause you’ve never seen this new other thing
And it’s absolutely magnificent
And you wonder, just for a second
Where it was, all along
How’d everyone miss this exquisite thing
Before you realize
It’s the beautiful thing
The Remarkable thing
Seen from a different place
And it just blows your mind
I mean
I think the beautiful remarkable thing
Is even more beautiful, more remarkable
When seen from this different place
But everyone’s hung up
On the one place
The perfect place
For seeing the beautiful remarkable thing
So that’s how everyone sees it
And, yes
This poem is a metaphor
But what’s more important
Is finally seeing the beautiful remarkable thing
As if for the very first time
My train speeds through the station
Camera lens pressed to the window
Short staccato shutter bursts
Seeking moments and frames
In one second
Three frames
Find three mates
And an interloper
This image the best
From the middle frame
Captured in 1/16,000th of a second
Then… they’re gone forever
In that moment now the past
Scarce opportunity for impressions
Too little time, even
To register more than a glimpse
Of form and tone
Years later
I shape the RAW data into a photograph
Meanwhile my mind lingers
With a ridiculously brief moment
Captured by glass, sensor and silicon
Allow the words to come
That shape stories
From the raw material
Of images
Collected from
Stories I’ll never know
With my muse ephemera
I rewrite history
To serve the present
Then offer a gift
To eternity
Alone
On the platform
Aloof
Caught
In a moving frame
From a passing train
Lost
To space and time and mind
But for a shutter’s click
Else
I might not have seen
He was ever there
While
Nought but a shadow he
Featureless and obscure
Now
A mystery
I happily leave unresolved
Huddled and swaddled
Against the chill
The platform
Covered from the rainy mist
But the breeze bites
Even through the blankets
In a mood neither bleak nor hopeful
But resolute and assured
For while the train is late
It is all but inevitable
And will take us from here
To somewhere else
Where somewhere else
May be work
Or home
Or family or friends
Somewhere we’ll find
Something we need
Or let go of something we don’t
Perhaps the only value
Of waiting here
Is to be able to step off
Somewhere else
Somewhere that is not here
And
For the moment
That is enough
Something about
The innocence of a child
Whether a babe asleep
In its pram
A toddler’s glee
In their first steps
The wide-eyed wonder
Of a pre-schooler’s discovery
Something to warm
The coldest heart
Something to stir ferocity
Toward any threat
Nothing rouses the extremes
Of love or Ire
As the innocence of a child
Is it paradox
To find this cascade of water
As fascinating
As a campfire’s billowing flame
Elements in contrast
Matter and energy
Opposites
Yet akin
Falling or rising
Beauty
In the flow
Of nature
I tumble and fall
Down cascades of white water
Dreams of tranquil pools