The photograph

I wrote this in response to a specific situation, but it speaks to anyone who got dragged into the muck of life without consent. Just thought I would share it.

It isn't about a specific person and isn't just about that situation. There are several people who I thought of as I wrote it...and many situations of lost innocence--including my own--that are reflected in it:

The photograph

In my attic I keep an album
Of all the photos I’ve ever taken
Some are color, some are torn
Some I forgot to label
Others scattered on the floor

There is this one photo
That I search for
My friend tells me that
I never took it
Claimed she’d know if I had

It’s a picture of her
Wearing a white dress
Pure and innocent
Beaming like a child
Searching the clouds above

She said that I wasn’t there
That the dress was stained
She said that her hair was mussed
She told me that
She looked at the ground

I said I was sure
That I remembered
The sun shining brightly
On her golden curls
Cleansing and refreshing

If I could only find that
Photograph
She could see the
Picture that I took
With my mind’s eye

Greg Harvey
7/7/2005