Classic Poem

Some dreamily smoke cigarettes, some track
toddlers who walk like drunks. Buzzy,
the picnic grounds, noisy, sun-crazed, how
forks and spoons don"t exactly lie flat.

A mountain"s here, a famous overlook
from which you"d see none of this. Like that
first daguerreotype, its moving carriages
and those who strolled never picked up

in the long exposure, a Paris street emptied
by the camera, only houses and lamp posts
gone eternal. Or the one who stopped
for a shoe shine, the one who knelt to the task.

At the picnic — a commotion. A large man
to a younger man. I don"t know you! he"s hugging
and laughing. I don"t know who you are,
he shouts over and over a stillness so immense.