(Upon viewing the photograph by Ben Razon)

 

 

Oh, it might be that two heavenly bodies,

Tiny points glinting in the sky, 

Were aligned as the shutter clicked. 

That—and all the elements coming together:

The segmented surface of colors, 

All translucent, almost submarine—

Could be the source of this photographic 

Magic. The electric wires overhead are 

Similarly aligned. The slim shadows 

On the worn and granular concrete 

Of the street,  the tattered shape of the rusty

Passenger jeep, parked almost flat 

Against the green wall crowned

By the thin silhouette of corrugated roof,

The lone wire bisecting the cosmic indigo

Of dusk—are all aligned or arranged 

As if by some design, maybe the photographer’s, 

Maybe some mysterious spiritus mundi 

From Yeats that has set up our decade 

To have madmen and inept sit on thrones

And at the head of board rooms, hold 

The keys or nuclear codes in America or Europe,

Dictate wars and state-sanctioned

Executions in Asia or Africa, 

Or mount or ‘tweet’ daily assaults

On human decency, civilization, and truth,

Or eject neighbor or native homeless 

And shoreless onto ocean or desert, 

Leaving children starved or drowned

Among jetsam on a beach, as drones, drugs,

And artillery erase the boundaries of nations.

Is this, too, the alignment of our fates—

The world and planets glinting like

Tiny points in the vast back-lighted blue

Of the expanding or contracting universe,

Arranged or crossed or teetering

In equipoise at the sightless edge of chaos?

 

 

Marne Kilates

30 December 2019

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