Friday, April 08, 2005

A Poem For You

So what do you think of this poem by Al Zoynas, entitled "Hat In The Sky"?

After the war,
after I was born,
my father's hobby
(perhaps his obsession)
was photography.
New fathers often become
photographers, it seems.
But he took pictures of many things
besides me,
as if he suddenly felt it all
slipping away
and wanted to hold it forever.
In one of the many shoe boxes
full of photographs
in my father's house,
one photo sticks in my mind,
a snapshot
of a black hat
in midair,
the kind of hat fashionable in the forties,
a fedora -- something
Bogie would wear.
Someone has thrown it
into the air --
perhaps my father himself,
perhaps someone in an exuberant moment
at a rally or gathering.
It's still there, hanging in the sky
as ordinary and impossible
as a painting by Magritte,
and it's impossible
how it wrenches my heart, somehow.
At odd moments in my life,
that hat appears to me
for no discernible reason.
-- Al Zoynas

Do you have any photos or mementos that create that sort of emotion in you, even if there doesn't seem to be a reason for it?

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