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To A Photographer

I have seen your photograph - the bridge,
Petrified against a northern sky's
Morning light that sharply shapes the clouds
And centers them around the gleaming sun
Like rays of blackened light that open up
A tunnel threatening to draw the mouse
Into the trap that lies beyond the skid,
An arrow frozen in its endless flight
From right to left ascending on its way,
Held by a vise's jaws that touch the border -
Taken from a front row seat: the hood,
The pillars, though not shown, create a frame,
A play within a play, a story told
Inside another one, and then the street
That leads the fellow cars beneath the bridge
Like through a window to another plot,
To yet another picture that contains
Another morning tale told with each car
That winds its way to places undisclosed.
The hierarchy of images unwinding
Is witnessed only by the naked trees,
And by the dried twigs of disfigured lamp-posts
That, mere spectators, stand aside unmoved,
And by your eyes that lend their strength to mine
To make me share the movement of your soul.
If only I could recreate the scene
The unforgiving way your picture does
By use of my lined-up effusive words!
But colorless those are, and tarnished by
Pale thoughts that dim the sight and blind the heart.
Your art is far superior to mine
Because it shows what I can't make appear
In my blank verses made of trite conceit,
What is but putrefied within my words.
So are these lines no more than just the corpse
Of what you gave me in a photograph
As Life, as Beauty's enigmatic token.

------------------------
instead of a dedication:
you'll know that you are the photographer, my friend.

Tom

Thank you Tom. I've paused for thought and found that more time has passed me by than I could have imagined.
The bridge was imagined and created. The photograph was created and we've imagined. And all of us: you; me; photograph; photographer; and even the bridge, are each on our individual journey. Time is what holds us to each other, but time will pass in its own way for each of us.
Byron 'sends his regards'.

Hi Tom~ Absolutely love your poem, but wish you would reconsider the 'self-depricating' reference regarding your inability to create something equal to or as substantial as the Photograph you honor. Your poem, though obviously "Inspired" now stands alone as a work of art within and of itself. Your poem is a beautiful smooth ride of words and images. Congrats and thanks for sharing. Regards, Laurie

To Tom
being a photographer
the secret's in the picture
and unfelt by youself
or is just a creation
Georges

Tom, I can appreciate your remarks of how the words fail to convey your appreciation of the photograph. To trot out the old cliche- "a picture is worth a thousand words". However I do think you are a bit over the top with your self deprecation. You should give yourself more credit for your skill with words. Being a writer, photographer and a painter, I think I can safely assert that a picture can convey that which words can only allude to. However words also, can communicate in realms that a visual artist can never approach. Where visuals can be more explicit and directly entertaining, words (and music) can ask much more of the perceiver's imagination. Then again multi-media can take us ------!?
Cheers,

Thank you all for your appreciation of the poem.

I am well aware of the power of words to evoke images that are incommunicable by visual arts. But the issue at hand was to praise a photographer, not a poet.

So the "deprecation" is to some degree a bow, and there's a tradition to self-deprecation of that kind, but partly it hints to a danger imminent to all writing - to be "sicklied o'er" by pale thought, instead of reaching for the full force of imagery.

Tom

A comprehensive and concise clarification.

And a bow for the artist.

Cheers,

More than five years after her death I can feel free to reveal that the photographer of this poem was our late great friend Sue Stark, the beautiful Spirit of the chat room.

Some still feel the loss.

Please count me among those who feel Sue's loss. Profoundly. The Chat room was literally never the same after she died.

It's so good to see you here again, tom. Might you be able to post that photograph now?