looking back to tomorrow

I am now looking at a photograph. One that had been taken in sepia, an ancient street with the moonlight downed low, with the shine of the lampposts humming the song of that night.

A memory of an invitation.

A memory of a blue wedding.

A shimmering gown and tear drop pearls with the color of water

veil my vision as remembrances of concealed joy and excitement fill my thoughts of this past.

As my fingers touch the images I see, I see my heart’s smile warmly.

As if just the second ago had been what I have in my grasp now.

I trace the lines of the streets as if tracing lines of the Great Book of my Life.

The cobblestones, the jagged edges bordering hurtful memories, the gem-yellow street photographed, a golden road still to be paved and tread.

In harsher light, the high curb streaks like a highway burning in the sun.

Its color, that of a Diana burnished by an angry Apollo.

It is the walkway where my bared feet had left their steps.

A brilliant arc that had not even been caught by half, reminiscent of half-hid rainbows.

Blaring bulbs, a choreographed line of dances in a procession, one by one by one.

Another set of arcs matched the open smile with the arched eyebrows.

What would have the ancient stone walls have said

had they heard my whispered confessions then…

would the lenses show what I breathed out as I hid behind them?

Haling the winds as walls were scoured.

Another photograph momentarily comes to mind of a man barred behind bars.

Head pressed between steel and steel.

Hands grasping metal on each side.

The face laughing unto the other side, to the very dear life that he wished was his.

How many memories can one single captured image hold, a million lifetimes worth may be. In light, of this light I begin to realize that where I had been born anew was in the port of the saint named after the light. Tears run from a renewed trickle. I have for sometime been hurting from remembering having buried myself in darkness. Yet, I now know that I have again surfaced. That again I am bathed in blaring white glow of a memory that away will never again go.

~~~

Numerous other dream-like visions are kept in compartments within the heart of a chest.

They too hold and keep their prayers.

They too will again emerge and unfold whenever I look back, and when I, again and again

look into tomorrow.

vincent