Images Drifting
by Odin Roark

So many open and close moments.
Camera after camera.
Year after year.
Aperture openings
As a heart’s appendage.

Such exposure
These eyes did see,
From birth’s moment,
Firstborn’s head emerging,
Taking his first gasp.

The swaddling covers,
Big boy sleepers,
Toddler snowsuits,
Children’s Sunday-go-to-meeting dress up,
Pre-teen jeans,
Rebellious trendies,
All passing so fast.

But first…

A second boy,
A playmate,
A friend for later,
A rival for now,
Knowing not the bond,
Only brothers understand.

All sired by an only child,
A questionable father,
A self-critical learner,
Often discovering love through pictures,
Making them laugh,
Cry
Wonder.

And so…

Snapshots grew from film,
To digital,
To the archival storage of the mind,
Where deterioration
Ran side by side
With defiant aging.

Ahead,
Days would pass,
That time would come,
Where to sleep,
To find nocturnal memories,
In one’s dream-weavers’ forever
Would reveal a daylight dimming,
An archive of snapshot memories struggling.

The point,
Focus,
Click of so many moments
Would become images drifting,
Fading into a horizon boding
A final sundown.

But gone?

Never.