Photographs of a flood (Canzone)

The photographs transport us to the flood

Such that it is as if we’re really there,

Holding on to what has been loosed by the flood,

Boards, beds, or animals drowned by the flood,

But still usable to prop up life,

Whatever of it is left by the flood

To sprout and blossom—until the next flood

Which could arrive without notice of  rain,

Even as we ask, wondering if it will rain

Because we face a long day with a flood

Of burdens, and hope, checking the time,

That rescue will finally come this time.

The photographs make do with freezing time,

But how can anything transfix the flood

And evermore  keep it outside of time

Unless as a reminder to gain time?

Still memory is dismissed as just there,

Somewhere, a lost item, misplaced by time,

Which has empty excuses every time

The mind beards the fragility of life.

Yet love stands before all as big as life

And in all patience waits for curtain time

As we hush up at the first drop of rain,

And see the dog shake off the drops of rain.

The photographs are hazy like the rain,

As photographs become when aged by time,

Whose work amounts to leaving in the rain

Whatever is saved and forgotten–rain

Is light without memory of the flood,

A term for the oblivion of rain,

The measure of the cruelty of rain,

Which sweeps away all that is there

And those who cry for what was there.

But did it not begin with us, the rain?

Did we not forget to pause, and give life

A thought, wanting to get on with our life?

The photographs show a kind of still life

In which the jars are toppled by the rain

And their contents are emptied of life,

But not the indestructible, the life

That moves the artist’s hand, that defies time

And puts the fragments back and gives them life,

Light-filled, laugh-fed, love-freed, lasting life,

A more delightful, joyful kind of flood,

That goes against the other kinds of flood,

Meets their type of death with its type of life,

Which happens to be both there and not there,

Because we see only that which is there.

The photographs stare at us even if there

Is no one, which often happens in life.

They follow us even if we’re not there,

As though implanted in the brain, and there

Can be for us no refuge from the rain,

Which seems to fall even if it’s not there,

And if it falls and we’re not there,

Does it make a difference with time?

Because the weather has its way in time

And moves its nimbus clouds from here to there,

Not in eternity, no, where the flood

Comes from rain that light has saved from the flood.

And then there will be no photographs of a flood

Because of love’s infinite summer, there

Will be no boundaries to life

Because on it falls gentle, greening rain,

Rhythmic as the seasons, constant as time.