silver halide crystals

sunlight glints off the small, silver framed photograph. two sisters at the older sister's wedding. i try to remember what i felt at the moment the photo was taken. staring into the photo, i slip into a reverie, dappled with light and shadow, and suddenly i am calling up other pictures in my mind, stumbling upon other small glimpses of that day and all that was in it.

press the button and light enters the lens, passes through the shutter and sensitizes the silver halide crystals on the surface of the film. a snap. a shot. a fraction of a second. light on film. a record of life frozen in time.

my two girls, you are not really here. you are faraway. and the images of you held in a shiny silver frame are not the ones i carry, rock-cradle-wrap, every single day in my soul. the images of you i cherish would fill books. i flip the pages in my mind and see all sides of you engraved there. ah, but you are here, my dears, in the precious pictures stored beneath my eyelids and memorized, like the endless lists of french and german verbs i learned in school, neatly spelled out and labeled on a corner of my brain. just here. inside. each a unique spot of bright light, never lost, always found. everlasting.

~happy, happy birthday, with love, to dear alexandra, who is the bride in the photo of my two lovely daughters.~