(And, for all my photographer friends)

 

 

It is the wild miraculous moment

Of sun and lenses, the blink 

Of aperture, the sky breaking through

The brush: not one quivering

Blade is missed, not the twisted vine

Or branch, the creaking shafts

Sprouting majestic from the corner,

The mind invents the memory

Of juice burst from the skin

Of watermelon, the thirst of cicada

Or locust, the smoke among

Shafts of sunlight, the vanished

Raindrops: It is that moment

When fingers grope, nay, caress,

The metal and twist to focus: 

The instant of the imperceptible

Bang in the black hole (in tube 

Of long lens or green stem), when

The shutters utter the stars’ birth cry

(Or was it only a trick of mirrors?),

And then the singular magic of the click. 

 

 

Marne Kilates

7 July 2021

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