Honor to “War Photographer”

 

Carol Ann Duffy’s War Photographer

Like a prophecy for me.

His “spools of suffering”, portraits

Of “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Phen.

Substitute: Syria. Somalia. Sudan.

 

We both find safer shores.

Rural England for him.

Urban U.S. for me.

But I too still see the fields exploding

And “running children in a nightmare heat”.

 

In his darkroom images emerge from film.

Records of horrific events.

The same emerge from the

Shadows of my memories.

And pain which never forgets.

 

I know well the “hundred agonies”

not in “black and white”,

But in living color.

I know them too that read the “Sunday Supplement”

Desensitized to these events.

 

War photographer belongs to neither world.

I belong to both.

Yet he speaks to my experience.

Validates my life.