Pictures of Volcanos
By: Michele Habel-Coffey
Sorrow in a stormy soul
Volcano in the clouds
A painted woman smiling
Next to a man, erect and proud
Molten, bubbling substance
Brewing just beneath
Her dress dancing with the wooden floor
And brushing at his feet
Like lava rising, reaching
Up caverns giving way
The woman’s pallor’s reddened
At a collar that is frayed
Hiding skin like porcelain
But not the blood that flows
Daring to color neck and cheek
Where passion’s secrets show
He’s gazing down, upon her head
But her eyes are on the man
Whose lens and light have captured
Silent storms and shifting sands
I turn and face Grandmother
Who wonders what keeps me
Longer than I should have been
Bringing her the tea
“Wasn’t I a song my child?
Dressed in tattered rags?
Such a scene so long ago
Oh how their tongues did wag!”
“Did you love him?”, I ask bravely,
“The man behind the lens?”
“No matter child. No matter.
I was married; he was kin.”
We stand a moment gazing
At the image on the wall
Though the mountain never boiled
There’s still an ash that falls
It covers what surrounds her
Like islands veiled in dust
The remnants of the nether
A long since buried lust
Its many years since Grandpa’s gone
Untimely was his death
Leaving her a widow young
Some years to her last breath
But each week she keeps her visits
Sometimes she’s gone for days
She returns with pictures of the places
That keep calling her away
Mr. Jones, he takes those pictures
Camera’s always ‘round his neck
When he calls for Grandma on those days
It’s the one thing I expect
There’s no pictures though, of Mr. Jones
Only Grandma, smiling bright
With colors in her porcelain cheeks
Reflections in her sight
Of the man that captures more
Than the images in her hands
He is movement on the richter scale
He is more than just her friend
From Mr. Jones, photographer
The man ever with no name
I see sometimes it’s the imagery
Holds more value than the frame.
