Death of a Cinematographer

The terror and the world are never far apart,
All that is is shadowed by what is wanting,
The novice and potentate quail at the sight
Of rock-hardy frames that merely contain: light.

What residue is in there of the dream? The perfection
In people and things, the connection of disparate parts?
A structure remains, some germ to assay,
Some quota to quote, as the angles age

Like the yellows of spring, and cobwebs turned from glistening
To archways of grey, threadbare yarn of coffins.
Never give up what fills the cup, though scentless and invisible
For it holds what we give away: mercenary joy, attempts at
forgiveness.

Yet his efforts remain orphans, despite our maternal embraces,
They disconnect from the mind that found them, become
Part of a past. He who could highlight
The thinnest strand of light leaves a legacy

Of relics and grief - he was here, in his mind
Yet scarce in ours, save how it moved us:
The lenses he turned on these moon-whitened evenings,
The faces he framed with the sun, those ones

We remembered, did we really love them
Or was it the sun, the answering light in their eyes?
He did not answer, he made it all stranger,
Yet we thank him for blurring the border,

Because he made it all more familiar, what we thought
We knew, although the truth went unspoken
'Til his silver cut the figure into place
And made us think of other shots, of further

Aperture turns, where what we know is crowned in glory,
Becomes a theme, in life's cascade of opportunities,
For one more shutter drop to bring a series.
We all inhabit the same light, yet he

Creates from the way he sees a look that's more unique
Than actors' torments and directors' tyrannies,
The ghost of the machine, of the secret mind of movies,
He's the eye we see through, that cheapened to capture it.

Do we inquire "what city, what school, what studio?"
When we enlarge it, make the connection between it and all
That is great, so we may look at it as worthy, of all we've learned
Of the world, for all of it inheres in these symbols,

An alternative world, born of man, a light stroke
Dredging the deepest of pains, a focus
Foregrounding the highest joys, contours and colors
Making boundaries of the silence in our souls.