How can anything so priceless
be so worthless?
Pictured here is a stranger
in a strange land.
Long since dead
with no label for a headstone.
I wonder what he was thinking
as the picture was snapped.
Maybe a trip to the speakeasy
or a rare peek at a lady's ankle.
From that car it has to be in the '20s
And that flat old straw hat
cinches it.
I wonder who it could be.
And look at this one of the giggling girl
on the old cannon.
That could be aunt Effie.
These girls are having a ball.
Look at those sailor middies.
Do you think it was a fad because
of World War I?
Knickers look so strange
these days.
Here is one at a dance.
I probably have the song
they are hearing
in my Jazz collection
This looks like the whole family
and the family dog.
A family photo album is a thrown anchor
from the past
demanding time in our present.
Here and there are folks I recognize
teasing me that they know
the secrets of the album.
And each unknown model smiles
a message that they have
a story to tell.
Albums are an unwelcome inheritance.
They have too much promise
and too little satisfaction.
Can't throw the useless things away
nor put down the priceless gift
from the past.
I too have an anchor
to toss into the future
to keep one of life's
great mystery traditions alive.