nd

by Gerard Malanga

       Photographs have a way of becoming souvenirs of happier times,
reminders of a time and place; sometimes
the nd as a stand–in for “no date”
or some such date is missing.
The angle of a certain autumn light.
A street awash with what had been a sudden downpour;
now all that’s gone.
And what remains a kind of nothingness, a quietude.
A beginning to somewhere somewhere else or somewhere’s very end. A few snaps
tossed in a shoeless box, forgotten.
What remains the memories unphotographed.
They, too, become what nature quietly bequeaths
as a gentle linden furling or unfurled.
So many sudden moments once imagined, imagined still . . . c.