The two of you sit
In a room that is too hot.
Surrounded by a quiet love story
captured in mostly black and white.
I experience a love so profound
it cannot be defined.
Traditional labels seem so inane,
   so stupid.

Resting,
you both seem so frail
in a shocking, unexpected way.
Standing above,
thinning hair a metaphor for
   the passage of time.

But time stands still
and runs backward
and runs ahead so fast,
I know I will be on some bench
   somewhere -
marveling at where time went
at an unexpected moment not
so far in the future.

From a Detroit-born camera
from the 1930s,
I see my grandfather looking out
   at me
in a 2008 Rhode Island exhibit hall,
and lines that separate blur.

Eleanor,
I find myself some peace in you.
A body wanting to thicken over time,
but your gaze so direct,
so simple, so knowing,
so uncomplicated by doubt.

The father I thought would be
   forever strong,
curled in on himself
like a Harry Callahan leaf
ready to blow away.

The mother I perceived in youth
   as weak,
the rock.
The strong one.
The one who found her voice
only to lose her speech.
She will find it again.

They are so beautiful to me
   in that moment,
so precious.
More beautiful that they
   ever were in youth.
The gift of life and love it seems,
only possible with the passage
of time, that mortality,
that tide of changing places.

Love wrapped in moments
tender
that take you by surprise
on little cat feet.

- J. Coby Wayne
27 November 2008
RISD Museum, Providence, RI