It is a very old photograph, yellowed with age.
It was made from the light of a century ago.
My grandparents sit in their brand new Ford
with my mother and my uncle.
They have sat there stoically watching
Though years of war and peace,
prosperity and ruin.
They have been mute witnesses to the births and deaths;
the joy, the tears, the laughter.
The subjects themselves are all gone now:
my grandmother first; my mother last of all.
(I think the Ford got traded for a Hudson.)
The accumulated light of those ten decades
effaces all away.
The images are fading, some features barely can be seen
But I still recognize my mother’s determined stare
as her nine year old self
faces down the photographer.