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Poems of the Past
My Great Great Grandfather’s Light
The photographer who crossed an ocean into the ether
97 years ago,
My great great grandfather Michael Falk
Took a professional photograph of himself,
His elderly mother Chana,
His 21 year old son Bernard,
And his infant granddaughter, my grandmother Thelma,
For the occasion of a photoshoot welcoming Thelma into the world.
1923.
On that day, my great grandfather Bernard was younger than I am now.
So too my great grandmother Jeanette.
When Michael left Minsk for Boston in 1897 so was he.
Now Chana, Michael, Bernard, and Jeanette are all decades returned to dust,
With Thelma, dead at 96 not yet a year ago, shortly behind.
And yet the paper prints of that day have not even curled and yellowed.
Michael’s loving commemoration has outlived everyone it commemorates,
And now so too will the mere image in the digital ether
Long after the original prints —
And I, their living commemoration —
Have joined them in the dust.
-March 16, 2020
