The Snapshot
Through the screen door,
he crossed an open expanse
of glistening wet grass
to stand still
amidst the age old trees
of his youth.
From his pocket
he took a small instamatic camera
and pointed it at the stars.
His finger moved
and the strobe flashed out,
sending a pulse of light
into the deep and distant sky.
Happy with himself,
he smiled, dropped the camera
into the side pocket of his jacket,
and returned to his
insignificant little house.
One thing was not fully realized
(nor did it need to be).
By the time his negligible
strobe of light
reached the star he'd aimed for and
returned its faint flickering image
to a long absent camera,
he, and everything he had known,
would be long dead.
In a week's time
his snapshot would be back
from the local lab.
For some reason
the inky black blankness of the paper
does not bother him.
Perhaps sending the flash
was all that mattered.

©89 JDH (for Cleo "Bud" Hubbell
who died of cancer that year)