Yesterday -- A Poem by Elaine Swank
08/03/08 15:29 Filed in: Photographs
Yesterday he got
a prize for Sunflower Bee.
It’s a photograph.
All yellow bursts and summer promise
A tiny bee in the center,
A dusty yellow nipple.
And then, he sold a photograph.
A gargoyle.
A hunched, stone guardian that perches by a garden pond
both summer and winter, mossy on one cheek, hard-eyed.
The man with the wallet says he misses his,
both garden and his guardian.
It was a good day.
But then, at home, the flashlight catches fire.
It flames up brilliantly while he is changing the batteries.
Into the sink, no harm.
But, I think, life is like that.
Batteries, my friend, will flame, even on the best days.
It’s a photograph.
All yellow bursts and summer promise
A tiny bee in the center,
A dusty yellow nipple.
And then, he sold a photograph.
A gargoyle.
A hunched, stone guardian that perches by a garden pond
both summer and winter, mossy on one cheek, hard-eyed.
The man with the wallet says he misses his,
both garden and his guardian.
It was a good day.
But then, at home, the flashlight catches fire.
It flames up brilliantly while he is changing the batteries.
Into the sink, no harm.
But, I think, life is like that.
Batteries, my friend, will flame, even on the best days.
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