I tend to scry in dusty shops
and in forgotten attics, where old pictures
wait their resurrection in my eyes;
I want so much to look behind them,
move through the layered images of days and years
stored like some overlapped transparencies,
that never fade.

It's true enough; brown paper-shrouded mystery
makes all surreal, though one may understand
that well before the light rebounded to the lens
the old and somber bearded men
already knew they would not smile again.

They are complete; I am compelled
to gaze upon these yellowed images, and like Ezekiel
see sinews,
flesh,
a verity retracing time,
and placing my own pre-incarnate plane
inside.

It is as if I am a traveler,
yet strange before the womb that bore me,
far away, between a land I knew
and one where I am known.

I know these silent men, for I am one with them.
They are my own.