In The Background

Sailing through my family photographs
Used to be my favorite childhood hobby;
To behold savored instances from the past,
Whether they did or didn’t include me.

There’s one picture that I liked most,
Of my then five-year-old brother,
Looking angelic and so enviably pretty
That I’d boast to my friends that it was me!

In that photo, my mother sits in the background;
Her part is darker but her ardently glowing grin -
Which she directs at her smiling little son -
Is simply far too bright to be left unseen.

Twenty-eight years after that picture
I now happen to look at another.
There’s my nephew who was then one year old,
And behind him laughing, his toy I hold.

My mother’s still grinning in the background,
Her gaze, this time, directed at her grandson.
Her defiant grin - still bright, still lively, still wide -
Always keeps setting my own spirit wild.

Eternity steals moments with these shots, but I -
I wish to snatch Infinity from the grip of Time
For I fear, one day, to look at a picture of my Child
And not see my mother’s defiant grin in the background…

Copyright © 2007 Daisy Tchiftjian