Pictures

 Pictures

What can be a better picture than an ocean cliff, say,

With a receding dark storm in the background, and bursts of light pouring through?

See, photographers make use of both the beautiful and the ugly to create astounding, deep pictures.

If pictures were only of pretty girls, all in white dresses say,

Well, then the world would never get to see the desperate brilliance of the rain sliding tiredly

Off the green and blue aluminum tiled roof of a shack in Mongolia,

Under which a starving child plays with a wire toy, smiling despite the rain.

For me, this picture would hold more Real Beauty than anything so one sided as Pure Beauty.

 See, I can find more Religion in an autumn pile of leaves:

 Thoughtful reds and vibrant yellows and disbelieving greens,

All with hints of decayed black to give depth, than in any church mass.

Unless, of course, you count counting the golden motes in the afternoon air, swirling.

Or if you follow the gritty lines in the pews, on and on,

 Seeming to stretch away just as far as you are willing to follow them.

And maybe just a bit more.

Oh yes, I’ve been there: I’ve smelt the incense seeping out of the hopelessly impermeable orbs;

I’ve been blinded by the gilt on the robes of those standing above me.

By the guilt on their eyes.

They tried to tell us that the stars, they feel.

That they mourn every single light that dims but doesn’t die,

 Wishing they could take every single lump of diffuse star, and push it all the way to darkness.

 Or rekindle it.

Better than just being, and not feeling.

But that was sacrilegious; there can only be one Good direction, and so they lie.

They lie: for us, yes.

 For themselves, so they can sleep at night under the abundantly rare stars:

Scarcely plentiful enough to turn the night into day, but by far amply singular enough to turn

anybody into Somebody.

We are all effected by the gravity of the farthest bit of matter in this universe from us,

But only sometimes do we recognize the weight of the connections that are closest to us. 

Reviews

[cest la vie]

What a "visual" piece you have penned here. The more pieces of yours I read, the more I see how deep is your well of talent.
Truly another exceptional write of yours!!

[Terri]

ok, i said i would read it and i read it. nice job on the picture part. photographers can really relate to those words. but i would have left it off at that. overall, nice job

[Poeticpiers]

beautifully descriptive poeticprose which poses questions to ponder in depth. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and yet we can with our words evoke a thousand different pictures