USA

sgiedeman@aol.com

Eyes

We see gray vistas
bleeding heart of pomegranate
lightning bolts on a lake.
Our eyes focusing
remembering
leaving no record.
A solitary camera
A consciousness that dies.
I want to gaze through my
great grandmother's eyes.
To see what she saw
on her last trip out of Scotland.
I am a voyeur
in a dingy second-hand shop.
A basket of forgotten photos
a scruffy sheaf of black and whites.
Greedy for frozen memories
I fan the scallop edged pictures.
A man with a cane and a monocle.
A woman leaning on the fender of a roadster.
Memories soaked like rum in a sponge cake.
Three dustbowl Okies
Rincon Camp 1937 pencilled on the back.
One of them holds a long-forgotten infant.
A straw-hatted man
sitting on a dune.
Coal eyes, wet eyes, weary seen everything eyes.
Skin stretched over bones
turning to folds
then light
pure light
from the eyes staring out.
I want to know the last thing my mother saw.

© Copyright, Sandra Giedeman.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.