Photography Lesson

From the lazy greens of summer

where laughter is tossed about on every breeze

his world falls out of the framed portrait,

the frozen perfection

he had stolen from someone else's life.

His emotions are splayed

on the frosted steel of reality.

The photograph sits there

under a shroud of dust

the once bright colors

now dulled into a monotonous haze.

Mental videos

recorded on standard-8 film

replay the errors he could have evaded.

Even now

in retrospect

everything is not all black or white

but rather is shaded

in varying degrees

of grays

and gloom.

His soundtrack of choice

would have been composed of cellos

and bassoons loud and low.

Morose for effect

but enough to mask the true sounds

the howls of wind

the scatter of leaves