Eight Pictures on a Wall.

Eight pictures on the wall. In the hall.
Leading to a dark place at the end.
Most museum goers miss them.
They are out of the way, tucked in a corridor
that ends in darkness.

You are drawn there.
Maybe more to the darkness
than the images. In fact,
weeks after your visit,
you will not be able to recall the photographs.
You will remember the hallway.
And the darkness.

About this poem.

An odd sort of poem, a looking back. Caused by a conversation this morning about my first wife. I rarely think of her these days unless someone brings her up. At times it is as if that twenty-five years of my life have been erased by the emotions and time of ending, by what has happened since. I can recall memories when I consciously do so, but otherwise, it’s all a dark hole. A place rarely visited. As if my life started 15 years ago.

And too, it is about this hallway at Mass MoCA, one of my favorite museums. For some reason, it always stays in my memory.

Poetry is never about one thing.

Tom