! ! The Guy In The Photograph Poem by Michael Shepherd
! ! The Guy In The Photograph
Out of the old tin frame
the 1944, I guess, photo, shines
a carefree smile from the 15-year-old
caught on a hillside in the summer air
in pure happiness..or so it images..
It’s the only photo from the album
that I like to have around; I look at it
and marvel that I ever looked like that
for more than one unguarded moment..
Is the story of my childhood that I tell myself,
the agonies of growing up, the uncertainties,
the discovery that parents are not perfect…
the not knowing who one really is…or might be…
all that, a fiction, or a fraction of the truth?
From time to time, I glance at it,
(as my parents must have done,
with all the thoughts that I’ll now never know) :
accept its mute challenge of beauty, goodness, truth…
he's expecting all that life may offer;
this is the guy I must keep faith with…
what else is there to say?
Another introspective piece. It gives one pause the way an old photograph can prompt one to confront that earlier self. Thanks for sharing.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/24/2024 2:56:43 AM # 1.0.0.1119
I remember my dear old mum saying to me during her ultipenultimate year - 'I know I look awful in the mirror, but in here, I'm just the same'. I think I know the little boy you describe, just as I know another one about the same age, who looks out from the bookcase here - trying so hard to be good. Nostalgia penned without sentimentality. love, Allie ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥