a photo album
is one’s pictorial grip on one’s life -
a slippery hold maybe,
but comforting nonetheless,
as one holds it close to one’s chest:
my friend declares, and pulls out
a personal volume of pictures
my friend
leans forward
to the carefully-kept open album,
index finger on a picture
of a man standing in the open fields;
and my friend whispers:
he was my neighbor;
he was a good man, kind
and always cheerful;
devoted to his family and friends and work;
much liked by all; he’s dead…
he died just last year…
and I look up at my friend
and I am offered a nervous smile;
and the unspoken words
slip into the spaces
between the pages of the album:
someday we too shall be gone
and perhaps someone
will point with a finger or cursor
and utter affectionate words in memory
of these quiet deaths
that remove each from one’s landscape…
remarkable ending lines...your poem finger touches the softest corner of the reading mind...thanks...10
Beautiful poem Raj, little subdued perhaps, but i enjoyed it immensely. I can also identify with the photo album viewing and pointing at dead people............. Milica
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Raj I really love when you do this style of poem. It's true; we feel a nervousness in the realization that everyone slowly goes away; sooner or later, young or old, we all end up the same. This is wonderfully subtle.