From The Dark Room

I am a photographer, printing..
Some pictures I took, long ago.
It is night, just the new moon glinting..
On the smoking mountain far away...

Fireflies, here and there, are flying,
The season of winter is done..
I am busy printing and drying,
and the faces emerge one by one...

They seem to rise up from the ocean..
So strangely they come into view,
like moons from the void, in the motion,
and suddenly there is you...

Your face sprighty like a fountain..
looks up from the little bath..
A wind blowing down the mountain
strews leaves on the garden path...

The ruby light falls on the photo,
your face, smiling, tilts up and gleams.
It wants to break free from the water,
It wants to come back in dreams...

O my dear! rise up from the water,
and surface the wave with your eyes.
My breath will, I promise, warm you,
my memory will bring you, into lively skies...

But you have already hardened,
the ripple of water is still,
you must have forgotten about me -
your look is so stony and chill...

Life is hard and demanding..
and you can't live it over again,
if there is no understanding
each other to the end...

This film holds many others,
friends still hidden from sight,
urging me on and on,
to print the photographs in tone..
and I am working here all alone...

.... April 21, 2002