Family Portrait
This old carrier contains the remains
of a jumbled family jigsaw whose puzzle
lies in the tell tale outline of vanished lives.
A few of you went underground, lay in wait,
until distracted hands, digging in drawers
disinterred eyes that still could not be met.
Time travelling back through tiny windows
of history, even faces estranged by youth
remain as potent as their owner's presence.
Strange suddenly to find this platonic version of you
surviving on untarnished in the memory of your friend.
Here, you are eternally innocent of the people you became.
Slower than growth, some of you are allowed to
creep back, given temporary lodgings in shadows,
house ghosts whom we must learn to live with.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem