Essay on Photography

The third thing I could not see or speak to—

I wanted to own it—steal it from the world.

In childhood I seemed to understand

what breathed through all things and imbued in them 

aesthetic and moral value, only

when trying to articulate this fact, 

the clarity got whisked away—I rammed 

my mind against the cropped edges of words 

that would not part or sway. Around this time 

I was gifted a digital camera 

presumed to console the dread inducing:

prolonged period of inward habits: 

not speaking, sleeping late into morning, 

staying out in the forest after dark.

The forest held many hopeful subjects:

creek-bed, deer-print, icicle thrown over 

cedar-limb. Back inside I photographed 

smooth ceramic plates and chiseled stemware, 

the undersides of all the winter shoes, 

the webbed palm basket’s rough interior. 

I foisted my narrow lenses onto them.

The third thing I could not see or speak to—

I wanted to own it—steal it from the world. 

I prefer to not repeat myself, things 

should exist for a time and then be gone, 

irretrievable, no reproductions. 

Clicking through the photo archive I felt 

that same chasm between seen and known and 

true. The image cheapened the world I saw.

The image held the moment and broke it. 

Certain states are ostensibly separate:

made and extant, animal body and

spirit: a camera cannot photograph 

its own aperture, so to speak. Thus began 

my swearing off of images, that is, 

until the autumn morning when the glass 

pierced my ungloved finger, cutting an arc 

wide as a piece of paper. The finger 

bloomed, wouldn't be bent for a time, for fear

of tearing. I found the gifted camera  

at the bottom of the palm shoe basket.

Clicking through the photo archive I saw 

what I first thought was some mechanical 

error but soon registered as a smooth 

plate from that brief phase of material

studies, a tight shot, slightly unfocused: 

milk or lotion-toned expanse containing

subtle lines that radiate from the plate’s 

center somewhere just above the cropped edge.