Photo Album

What registers as real?

In a foreign country & loving it as earth

even though feeling a stranger to Earth right along...

How surreal, the dreams each night were filled

with people back home, those to touch bases with,

those familiar as the unfamiliar streets seemed.

Stranger, what a Seine, what an Eiffel you were,

you & your neighbor, & his neighbor & hers’...

So here’s the same flow:  this fruit stand park,

this Notre Dame, the statues of Rodin

filling pages in a distant room.

Flip, flip, flip—

I owe phone calls & letters.  I have plans 

for the catching up, & new seeds to plant,

& paintings-in-progress, but who/what registers as real

when they breathe whole landscapes 

& we’re only the cameras of tourists, 

we’re only approaching mail?