Not Broken, Just Bent.

rise and rise again
you who would be trod under
ground dull into dust

rise and take flight
over those demons who rend
cast your eye further than what drags you below

rise and loose your merry heart
the joyful word is not wrong,
is not shameful, and should never be such

rise and rise again
and when low you find yourself
look within, and rise again

It's glossy and sleek
light lifts sparkle and shine
a perfect likeness
perfectly displayed in a flat black gallery frame.
It is displayed proudly, virtually
it can be found from anywhere in the world
with a keyword search

It's crumbling
in my hands, in the air
dusty particles drift on shafts of light.
It's yellowed, the pigments faded
the laughing subjects indistinct.
I drink in the image, and wonder
turning it over, hoping that someone, sometime
thought to note who they were.

Long gone to ground
their happiness still sparkles
from behind the restless slide of time.
Then this image was not special.
No date scrawled on the back,
no names, no clues.

The idea of metadata is not new.
Will the future feel the wonder of bridged time over old pixels,
as I do with your decaying photograph?

One of the SCA Horse people lost a mount to age, and someone sent this along with his condolences.
I thought it was an interesting passage, and didn't want to loose it.


Old Horse

His muzzle on my hand was stubbled sharply

as tall grass fields in August.

In the garden mouthing an indifferent salad

weeds and lettuce daisies grass

he'd slip into his age, asleep and eating.

On three legs stiffly propped

the ears aslant

the hip-bone angled to the fourth leg's resting

So beautiful in his unlovely age

So angular, distended, roughly coated

So warm

So muscular

I never let him die but had him stolen.

From his grave I watched our unknown neighbors carefully

and waited for his call.

There are nearly twenty years between today

and that day he had seen more years than twenty

Still --

In the enemy's camp somewhere I know he's tethered

Lost in the tents

Despairing my arrival.

I have no spies to send, no messengers

to tell him I will come

But some day, surely

He will feel his halter slip.

I will cut his hobbles.

And we will gallop through the dark together.

Joyce B. Gregorian 4-72