The Photograph
I passed an image in a magazine,
skimming over as I do my life.
But something hidden within that scene
recalled a fragment with the edge of a knife.
A memory: two boys a river and a dog,
all innocent in the golden flow of light;
absorbed in the moment with never a jog
of care, and no hint of their futures in sight.
For one of those boys the future was short.
The other now grieved, unwilling to forget
that he’d forgotten and lost two lives which he ought
to maintain and revere with esteem not regret.
The picture, like a portal to an inner world,
like a door to a room, or a peephole to a soul,
was closed to most; as empty as a word.
But to me it was code: a part for the whole.
MARK GREENLAND