4. Visual Sense

The fourth part of a series that should be read in sequence:
1. Hotel Peninsula
2. Daylilies
3. Clear Wrap

4. Visual Sense

Thank you for making it comfortable for me—the meals, the leisurely sightseeing, the photos that you so gamely took so that I won’t look like an ant.

You know how hopeless a photographer I am.
With no manual knack, I own no visual sense,
not enough anyway to frame beautiful scenes
into souvenirs. Thank goodness for the Digicam!

Freed to retake my mistakes in memory sticks,
I reached for Liberty’s diadem-spears and torch.
You, my dear R., appeared the size of a cockroach,
a poor picture among the improvised picnics.

Focused on you, your pixie, but not pixelled, face,
another photo showed your Mona Lisa smile,
but Liberty became the grayish granite wall
guarding the entrance into the American base.

Lying down to shoot upwards, like in my bed,
I saw you stand shoulder to shoulder with Liberty.
From that temporary place, I also captured me
and, looming over me, Liberty’s handsome head.

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