Another Reason

The flowers I moved
from your garden
after you died
are now in bloom.

Purple bearded irises
in blousy pirate shirts,
pansies with pinched faces
like that painting by Munch,
and daylilies that tilt to
listen to the sun’s aria.

Their beauty was close to your heart
and now it colors mine.

I love them just as you did.
But the reason is not the same.

*

There Are Always Two

Ansel Adams said that “there are always
two people in every picture: the photographer
and the viewer.”

Looking at the photo my father took
of a brown 1953 Ford, his first car, or a snowy
white swan frozen in time like an iceberg,
from a date with my mother at the Bronx Zoo,

I try to imagine what it was like for him:
adjusting the exposure, the shutter speed,
the aperture, looking through the viewfinder,
and before pressing the small chrome shutter button
on his Zeiss Ikon, he slowly exhaled.

A trick he taught me, and one he learned
as a photographer during the Korean War—
how to remain calm and gently squeeze off a shot.

What he saw with his eyes, I see now with mine.
I feel the same sense of pride that he must have felt—
a young man and his new car, his entrance into adulthood.

Ten years after his death and fifty years after the original image,
we can continue our conversation.

I think about my children with every photo I take.

*

Kevin Boyce is a poet, photographer, children’s book author, and lifelong resident of New England. He volunteers in his hometown, leading a community-sponsored contest and publication for emerging authors.