September 11, 2018

footage

There was a Thursday afternoon at the Botanical Gardens that was almost
perfect, and I'm grateful she snapped my photo when I lay in the fallen blossoms 
of that magnolia tree and closed my eyes. There is another from the Fort Lauderdale Zoo
that locates me in the heart of innocence, hands reaching toward some gentle furry thing
trained not to bite children, and whoever took that snapshot timed the shutter flawlessly,
my face registering the precise intersection of disquiet and delight.
But this day, heavy as it is with footage, teeters on obsolescence, because I keep looking 
for that moment before we turned our collective gaze toward smoke, when strangeness
was our friend and uncertainty an invitation, when the sky was the compass of potential
and the earth a crucible of good intention, and I can't find that picture anywhere.