Old Photographs

When I look at old photographs

It always strikes me forcibly

That the animals in them are dead.

The donkey that I rode on

At the seaside, I was five;

The flying bird I snapped

At Bognor Regis in the eighties-

Both of them are dead,

Reminding me of my mortality.

When I said this to a guide

He said the flowers too are dead,

The grasses and small plants are dead

In photos I took long ago.

Everything is changing:

Humans, plants and animals.

They’re in a moving process

Changing, dying, being born.

You photograph a moment,

Seeming still, yet moving constantly.

It sounds a little Buddhist,

Though I didn’t think that was his faith.

It was meant to comfort me.

I do feel reassured,

Though when I look at photographs,

They may still strike me the same way.

It is a habit long ingrained.

His words will come back too,

Reminding  me life changes constantly.