Reverse Negative
In photography, a reverse negative is a print of the negative image
where once was light- now darkness where there is dark, it glows
***
I have moments in the shadows
seconds in the sunlight
there are epochs when daylight seems a darker shade
of night…
blue satin sky
inky velvet night
now this
my sixth decade
you find me find me balancing-
teetering
on
a golden gossamer thread
between life
and
eventual demise…
When I was 11
We visited my father’s favorite great aunt, Della
She of ample bosom fallen to waist line
still, much adored…
she, of faded, yellowed hair
she,
who loved my dark, dark auburn hair…
In the mirror of her life
She saw the past reside in the freckled
face of an 11 year old me
I screeched
then ran down the steps from that wonderful wide
Wraparound porch
to the tool shed behind her garden
where squash and okra grew.
I sobbed.
Several lifetimes later,
While looking in old family
photo album as a child, my precious, favorite nephew picked
“me” out in a picture and wondered why
I was wearing those old timey clothes…
It was she,
not me in the photograph.
My now nearly 40 year old eyes
acknowledged what Aunt Dell saw in me
at eleven.
Nancilynn is Writing again 