Family is a memory that recreates itself,
every generation finds the scar of its name
still sharp on the spirit and tangled in the actions
we are called upon to build our nucleus.
* * * *
The land was dusty and the car was black --
always black, as if mourning the moment
we gave ourselves to the glory of oil and gas.
The log cabin in the picture told us it was the time
before Levitt town had stolen a father’s
hands and heart from the walls of his home.
Adventure was found in dime novels
school a long walk through the snow
Movies the wonder where the family longed to go.
Electricity was a townie’s delight
like modern plumbing, it made them soft --
they didn’t have to freeze to go on a winter night.
The REA was still a long ways off, but you could feel
the change was coming and coming all too soon.
Roads getting paved and horses left to pasture's shade.
Silver nitrate emulsions and the Kodak brownie
were the rage, stopping time and memories
putting it all on view. So much to see and do.
Catching sight of your mother and her brothers
when they were just as young as fools, makes
you forget for a moment the changes she went through.
1:38 PM 12/19/08 Alexandria, VA
Author notes
Picture is from Micol's personal collection. His mother and two brothers.
REA which I think stands for The rural eletric act is a bill passed by congress to ensure that every home in america was wired even when it was not profitable for the electric company. It is how the farmlands became part of the electrical grid of america.
A contest entry
- Antique Photograph by micol.
800 points, ended August 23, 2008, 9 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think, what it makes you feel, how you are moved.
Comments
1 - 32 of 32
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I loved this poem, I could just see how people reacted to everything changing so fast and leaving the hard life and going to the soft and easy life. Sometimes i think it would be nice to have been able to live when we didn't have all of this CO2 in the air that poisoned our ozone. I hate it, love the poem either way and great job, and write.
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Thanks for stopping by. Glad you enjoyed reminiscences about the time when we were an agrarian culture instead of living out of a memory. Every shift in technology creates a disruption, we are in one now. Part is caused by greed, part by dislocation most of all how we cannot leave the past even as we try to take advantage of the future.
Peace,
Tom B. -
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Really, most people I know would die if they couldn't be on a cellphone all day long. I don't even have one. I really don't see why they have all of the extra features like the internet on them.
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The truth about technology is it increases our ability to be dependent and practice helplessness while maintaining a pretense of independence.
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Yeah..
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Great memoir, Ton, my friend!
The remembered images are very clearly and vividly described. The photo is perfect and the subject / story is super! This is a fine poetic memory / story. I can sure why you won a gold medal / trophy for this one, friend! keep up the outstanding work!
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I sent you this because I thought this is the kind of poem you would enjoy. I have always been fascinated by history and technological developments as well as sciencetific break throughs have changed our lives. Took me a while to get this right, wasn't sure if I would get it done in time for Micol's contest. Glad you enjoyed.
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Congratulations ...
on a well deserved gold.
Kindest regards
Myra
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Thanks. I am truly surprised. This was written to catch the perspectives of the picutre taker and the later viewer with all the changes inbetween. Families are linked by blood and experience often created by a culture they cannot see for it is like be conscious of an enivironment (sp?) we take for granted. I guess I succeeded at some level far better than anticipated.
Lvoe, Tom B.
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so many flavors of life here, from a time when savoring flavor was important, kinship, the land, the greater forces suddenly sweeping over the country as before only winds and rains had done...Great Depression,the New Deal, industrialization...and all the things that began to pull families away from land, and from each other...so very well done here...PK.
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Thanks. I wanted to catch the picture, but do more than colorize it. This is in truth, one of my lists. I like all the little details that make up a moment.
Peace & Light,
Tom B.
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Tom, this is absolutely superb! I cannot think of anything more to say...I simply want to read it again.
Love, Lane
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Thanks. I was never sure if I was going to be able to find a way to write about this picture. it finally came together after a number of false starts.
Glad you enjoyed.
Love, Tom B.
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Oh my, such wordplay within the first three lines, I liked that, thought provoking indeed. NB Line 6 of his/of his used twice. A tad unsure about the reference to horses fading away, I am certain you meant from day to day usage but it gave me the imagery of them literally fading as in starving/getting thinner. The rest of the poem ran like a home movie with all the heart filled nostalgia and nuances, loved the reference to the soft townies, a wonderful poetic time capsule dear poet, you were right, I do like it!
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Thanks for the editorial and critical comments. Caught the mistakes and changed a line here and there. I think it is better for it. I felt catching nostalgia and the effect of the changes spoke better to the picture and how the family would change from this point forward than any other perspective I could come up with. Again my thanks for the critical help.
Love, Tom B.
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One thing I love about your poetry is that you'll write about love and time and all things that can calm a persons soul then you'll take something completely out of the blue and turn it into a work of art. This poem remind me of all the history reports and research I did in high school on the beginning of Ford, The Great Depression the Dust Bowl and when I read the Grapes of Wrath for the first time.
As always your poem was very though provoking and memory triggering. I love reading your work
Jordanne -
ooh my this reminds me of an ole photograph of my Grandfather, but in his it was an ice cream truck in the same form as the picture.
How these old pictures speak. You have given it a voice within your words.
Thanks for sharing,
Warm thoughts.
Frozentearz
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I wanted to catch two perspectives in this poem. The perspective of the time in which the picture was taken and how we look at it now. It created a challenge for me that pushed me to places i hadn't gone in awhile. Thanks for letting me know Ihave succeeded in some small way.
Peace & Light,
Tom B.
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tomisb:
There is nothing that can hold a memory
as well as a photograph -besides our mind,
and the mind eventually faulters-
You have captured this notion taken the
reader on a visual journey in words.....
As always my dear sweet friend you have
had this reader hooked on until the very end!
Thank you for sharing, and blessed be always,
With much love and respect,
AngelicMistress...Tanya
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It was a good challenge for me to try to write a poem like this. I had to stretch myself in ways I am not use to. Thanks for sharing the joy this brought to you.
Love, Tom B.
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I can truly relate to this one! First stanza, a commentary and metaphor for what was to come... the black years we are gong through right now!
I've been to Levitt Town near Philly, where the homes were all the same and the fathers went to war! IT's still the same today! How true we walked to school through snow storms and horrible weather. Your last stanza tells of the rapid changes that happened last century and what our mother's and father's saw. Their first TV in black and white, then if they are still living, the Big screen in high tech! Great reminiscence!
Love,
Linda
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Thanks. There is a certain hubris in quoting yourself for an epigram. I did it cause I need it to set the frame of the piece.
I talked to one ninety year old woman, my first wife's grand ma and she said that nothing she knew existed any more. She told me about first meeting her future husband as he drove a sleigh with two other boys by her farm house. This was on Long Island in a suburb of North Babylon.
I have moved around a great deal. I met men who sold their farms to provide for suburbs and lived in their farm house without electricity or plumbing because it was all they had every known and saw no reason to change.
We have started losing sight of who we are and what we earned. We think it is a right not a privilege to be earned. We forget how we make it together or not at all. And it is starting to look like all of us are not making it.
Love, Tom B.
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This write is reflection at its finest...
I very much enjoyed the voice used here,
the astute observation of society's advances
and the effect that they have on the family
unit. Differences back then were more concise
before the smudging of values, before the
numbing of individualism. "Always black, as if mourning the momentwe gave ourselves
to the glory of oil and gas" imbues the piece
with higher meaning the rest conforms to.
I grew-up in Kodak's hometown of Rochester, NY.
This piece can fit itself to any family who has
seen its elders cast off simplicity and the joys
of family pleasures for that of convenience and
status. Blue
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I wanted it in a conversational tone. I think it reflects better how much has gone by in an understated voice. I have seen a photo show that was nothing but pictures of America as captured by the Brownie some years ago. It was a stunning show and a black and white view of a America only briefly known. We speed so fast into our future that we forget some of the landscape we have traveled through. Thanks for stopping by. I enjoyed your thoughts and comments.
Love, Tom B.
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I loved all of this. The first part made me think how generations that came before, mold us into what we are today. No doubt future generations will feel the same way. A lovely snapshot in time. Thank you for blessing us with your words.
Love
Juls
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thanks. it took me a week or more to come up with this. I had the Kinks song from Arthur going through my head at times. Lots of lines and false starts. Somethings, just, take a lot longer to come together.
Love, Tom B.
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Wonderful write Sir Tomis, you have given us such amazing imagery and taken us all on a wonderful journey to another time and place....still family remains...sighs...smiles
many blessings
~A~
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I am old enough to remember the dirt road in front of my grandfathers house. The number of fruit stands was higher on the way to my grandmother's in Carlise PA and she had her milk delivered with the cream at top. Delicious memories, of world that has long gone by.
Love, Tom B.
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Gorgeous
You put me right in the middle of this scene, looking around at the words. I liked being here in this antique photograph...somewhere if you spy closely my images is in there-smile.
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I wanted to catch two perspectives. The time and meaning when the photo was taken and the shift when we look back on it now. Glad you felt part of this. It means I succeeded to some small extent.
Love,
Tom B.
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Love it. I love finding old pictures of my family. my grandmother was so lovely, she could have been a movie star. My Grandpa doted on his Helen. He took many photos of her, but always posing. Never any candid shots, which would ahve been nice. My girls love looking at them, and knowing who they were.
This is a wonderfully soft piece, one I was sorely needing today. I think I'll read the rest of the entries.
Best wishes my friend, as always,
blessings
jin
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It is and interesting contest because of the picture. It took me the longest time to get a vision of this. I wasn't sure I would come up with anything. Glad you enjoyed. it.
Love, Tom B.
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