Remembrance Before Forgotten

It’s just a matter of time before
I disappear leaving only dusty images
of youth on the mantel of remembrance
and those that gather will ask ‘was that
him?’
and out in the yard, dogs will fight;
at first playful nips until white and fire
fill their eyes as ‘bad dogs’
greets their raised fur
and all goes back to quiet
with a ‘yes, that was him’ as the glasses
are raised cheering my ghost
of once was.

And then the tray of sliced meats
and celery and olives will be picked at
as if five birds had spotted one worm
and the murmur of remembrance will fill
the air and no one will really know
who I was as those two dogs eye the last bit
of roast beef.

Only I will know who I really was.

Jim Senetto about Jim Senetto

My father was quiet; loving, provider but quiet…I never knew a grandfather, his side, or his brother lost at 28 and I was told not to ask. So quiet I was…me, the quiet one, second echelon in a group of friends…quiet in the confessional booth I was brought to…why tell a stranger, in a dark booth sitting behind mesh, my woes, thinking it just might be his woes were worse than mine (I’ve later learned, some in collars should have sat on the other side of that mesh window, confessing). I was drafted in ’66, taught how to kill strangers and my mouth began to question why and with some friends now dead from bullets of insanity, I became alive, vowing never to be as quiet as my father. He had his reasons, I’m sure, old school and all of that, but I had to break the chain. Art, photography, music, poetry is my voice and it’s all fair game…say it loud, some will listen and that is good enough for me.