New Fathers
July 23 2014


My nephew sends me pictures
of his beautiful baby girl,
which I dutifully archive
in my overflowing in-box.
Because it would be disrespectful
not to.
And who am I
to give him pause?

New fathers
are enthusiasts,
their delight infects us all.
And so her pictures sit,

unseen, but undeleted
guilt-free.

There are few pictures
of my childhood.
When the world did not revolve around kids.
When my parents, undone by technology
would leave the camera behind.
And when there was more hardship, than prosperity
who had the time?
So my undocumented life
will not live on
in posterity.

We were raised

as free-range kids.
Then farmed out to teachers
to be professionally finished;

our parents pre-occupied

with grown-up life, important work,

in a culture that mostly deferred

to authority.

Until, in the fullness of time

we slipped into adulthood
unobserved.

Which is just as well,
because who will ever revisit
this abundance of pictures?
And what does it mean
that to be real
it must be viewed through a lens;
modern meta-lives
performed so self-consciously?

But the power of a photograph
is impressive as ever.

The inner life, behind

that inscrutable smile.

A frozen moment, scrutinized

with the intensity of stillness,

like a theologian

parsing holy verse.

How simple shades of grey

conjure such big feelings;

the sweet pain

of nostalgia,

all the firsts relived.

While I have walked softly

left no trace.

Can reinvent my past

exactly as I wish,

unconstrained

by evidence.

Looking back
from a distant future
I could never have imagined, then.

Where possibility

no longer seems infinite.
And where old fathers
are not so enamoured by newness.
Not so quick with a camera
or filled with the stamina
to shoot.
Not so sure
a picture captures the truth.


Honestly, I'll get to those pictures soon!

But really, I am charmed and impressed by his delight in fatherhood.

Nevertheless, like inflation in anything, the abundance of pictures devalues any single one. The exercise in creating vast archives of childhood seems not only obsessive, but pointless: after all, as the poem says, will they ever even be looked at? And is a thing only valid if it's captured on film/video/electronic bit? What about simply losing oneself in the moment, in the flow, in unself-conscious life? Since a picture is all about serving the future and saving the past, it seems as if the present somehow gets lost.

I'm not an "old father": old(!), yes; but father, no. So there is a little poetic license here. But the perspective of age is valid. Yes, one tends to become more jaded and less energetic. But one also tends to skepticism and doubt; to a deeper questioning about received wisdom and assumed certainties. For one, I think it's far better to lose the picture while cherishing the experience, and then move on to the next, fully immersed.

On the other hand, I admire the urge to share; as well as a new father's earnest sweetness in assuming the rest of the world feels just as giddy as he does.

Meanwhile, I'll go on living unobserved, documenting myself -- however inadequately -- if not in pictures, then in words.