Images And Questions Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

The album’s pages turn
under my dry fingers
so much of you not here
so dustily long ago
yet accurate in every drab
inflection of light and shadow

that moment stilled
like so many others
not changed by artfulness
just stopped by brevity
of aperture and shutter speed

I cannot coax from you
a different mood or smile
see you where you now live

can only imagine
in the limitations of my artistry
what and where you really are

I look anew
at your bicycle leaning
against a rickety old-fashioned gate
your out-of-fashion dress
your expectant smile, that
reality of you in that real place

and a sadness overwhelms me
that there is no art
that can begin to make you wholly,

everlastingly new

or even wholly ever
lasting.