A Photograph

Step back from the wheel and out the door

Bags and straps a mangled mess, nearly tripping--

For I am but a casual klutz.

Buttons mashed, the reassuring tone of a secure possession;

How oddly deceptive this stability.

Walk about, gently careening towards a palace

From former days, from former glory

Where security was all too secure

And trust was merely status.

Take off my cap, the shutter speeds,

My fingers shudder, the cold gnawing my already coarse hands,

And I am there:

This moment, this frame, these sandstone bricks

Layered meticulously in such magisterial manner,

The graying sky, lined with white lines

Curling, swirling, refusing to sit still

Even for the briefest second, that I might steal this glance

Out from eternity's grasp, and make it my own

With no context, no caption, no commentary;

One still frame from which sings all

Of which human hands and the ever-Divine

Are capable of so finely crafting.

I draw back from a drawing not my own,

To see my limited sight of all expanse,

So far beyond my means and grasp,

So far beyond a palace built upon a hill,

Painted on a pained sky.

I am such a small creature.