POEM: BY LIGHT OF HARSHER DAYS

By Light of Harsher Days

After the first, fierce touching;

after roses and calling cards,

and seasons of dress and compliment—

after these so few years;

after all, what remains?

A fading photograph:

The line of her chin, her mouth;

the mid-knee line

of the hem of her skirt;

her neatly smoothed stockings;

her practical shoes vee’d carefully

on the front porch steps.

She’s standing there

one morning, seventy years ago,

the sun in her eyes,

prim and defiant.

Her curled hair waves a little

in the breeze.

And lit by the light

of a decades-gone sun,

the shutter opens briefly

to capture her—

though the camera’s mastery

will not be strong enough

to hold her for long.

 

THIS IS A PICTURE OF MY MOTHER taken when she must have been in high school; sometime in the late 1930s is my guess. She looks so young and at the same time, so much more mature than her years suggest. Back then, taking a photograph was serious business. Everyone put their best foot forward for the camera. No selfies, no hidden cameras (unless you were a Soviet spy, I suppose). Stand at attention and step forward. Click! goes the camera shutter. Pop! goes the flash bulb. At ease soldier! Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

     And I guess I wrote this poem about her when I ran across this old photo. I guess I never really knew her. She died in 1968 when I was fourteen. She was talented, gifted, a high school science and mathematics teacher. She played piano and spoke French. She had four children with my father, and I’m the eldest. I never thought of her as being a happy person; I don’t recall her laughing much. I think life got on top of her and it just became too heavy.

     So looking at this photograph, and seeing her expression of…what? Wariness? Caution? Perhaps it’s only teenage insecurities that come from standing in front of a camera, but I don’t see much of a difference between this picture of her as a girl and my memories of the woman who became my mother. And I guess, in part, this poem expresses my regret for never having had the opportunity to know her. In a way I am jealous of the camera—its magic held her close so much longer than I ever did.

     The poem’s title reflects a bitterness I guess I feel—perhaps it’s just a cloying sense of nostalgia—when thinking about the hopes and dreams of long ago and how they shape up today. We all feel this way at times about different aspects of our lives, of course, so that’s not rocket science. I used the word “magic” a moment ago to describe a camera, and I think I appreciate somewhat why some traditional cultures, at least in the past, were wary of photographs being taken of them. A photograph has a kind of magic spell on us. It fixes our gaze, our memories for a time, perhaps for all of our lives. There are photographs of all types—landscape photography, portraiture, journalistic and documentary—that enrich and inform us. I can’t help but feel that some photographs act in an opposite way, to tie us down to a past that never fades. I think it's pretty obvious that everything fades eventually in the natural course of things. Even the voids in our lives will fade someday, given enough time.

[Just a random thought: A thousand years from now, if any photographs of our times still exist, will a faded and untitled picture of Donald Trump be seen as an exemplar of civilized humanity or as a specimen of some wild and hairy backwoods warlord? Who knows. Perhaps the ruins of Trump Tower will be a site of pilgrimage. Oh! The ironies of history!]

Cheers, Jake.