The Begotten Lens
after Ernest Cole
They were kept
in cold silence—
as if shame
could be preserved frozen.
Glass dry,
sealed from time,
no clocks
to confess
the hour.
No one asked—
what becomes of light
without
the soul
to witness it?
I didn’t know—
the names
of the disturbed,
pressed onto silver halides.
Only that their quiet—
was thicker
than the cold,
bitter truth.
One face.
Then another.
Without name.
But not without account.
—
A boy watches.
His eyes—
withholding
the mercy of a blink—
From the glare?
Or the anguish—
that blinking
lets history
escape?
Fingers: off-center.
Mouth—
half-made.
Half-refusing
the question
no one dared form aloud.
You want to turn the page—
But: there is
no next page.
Only: this frame,
and whatever you call
what comes after.
—
His leaving—sudden.
The prints never followed.
The world unspooled him
like film from a reel—
click,
click—
light kisses paper,
then it’s gone.
Sidewalks saw him leave
to cities that didn’t know
how to keep him in place.
Their words stunned shut.
He photographed them anyway.
Like absence under scrutiny—
even that which was full
had been erased.
—
Ask me what survives.
I will say:
something between redemption & unrest,
something unmade,
but not yet abandoned.
You can catalogue the frames—
call them archive or artifact—
they won’t talk themselves out.
Faces smeared in black & white.
A mother gathers up her child.
A soldier holds the border at Sharpeville.
None of them stir,
but none are quiet.
—
They said
he left
with film in his bag.
Maybe that’s
the story.
Or maybe—
he just
longed
for the quiet mark
of return.
—
He arrived
knowing
his future
was fated.
The city
leaning in before him—
swift
& merciless,
steel spine
unyielding.
He rented hope
by the week.
Walked blocks
that did not appeal,
trying to catch
something
that wouldn’t fade
as it flashed behind the lens.
—
No photos
of his rooms.
Only the space
between
two closing subway doors.
Only a trail of smoke
drifting
from a stranger’s coat
on a winter morning
no one
held.
—
The irony
of freedom:
everywhere,
belonging
nowhere.
It’s also said
he carried his work
like a passport.
But paper
degrades.
Ink
forgets.
Even freedom,
unmoored,
can disguise
itself
as loss.
—
There was a woman—
or some imitation of her—
where light curved
gently,
breaking
nothing.
He watched her.
Raised the camera
to his eye.
Then—
let it fall.
What would the photograph show?
That there is grace
under concrete?
That stillness
is a refusal?
—
Dear home,
I sought you out
in the cities
where I was guest.
Spoke your name
in dialects
that resisted
translation.
I wrapped myself
around mirrors,
only to find them
altered—
again
and again.
The images
I thought would bring me closer
only widened the ache
between love
& absolution.
I wasn’t ungrateful.
Only exiled.
Always arriving.
—
Here—
a man kneeling.
Perhaps
tying a shoe.
The print:
indistinct.
Captioned:
unknown.
There—
a policeman,
face halved
by light,
hand
outstretched
for something
off-frame.
Below,
a child reaching
toward another.
But the edge of the image
cuts
the motion.
We will never know
if they touched.
—
You think:
there is story here.
But story
requires a spine.
These are ribs—
adrift,
lacking coherence.
—
They opened the vault.
Not a tomb—
a breathing wound.
But what came out
wasn’t death.
It was something
more disturbing,
unfinished.
—
Here is history,
not as record
but as residue.
—
And yet
it inhales.
—
The mother
leans her face
just so.
Light
strikes her
differently now.
The boy’s eyes
close,
momentarily.
You missed it.
But
you saw it.
And now—
it’s yours
to forget.
###