{"id":2051,"date":"2009-09-18T23:37:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-19T03:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/?p=2051"},"modified":"2009-09-19T23:34:11","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T03:34:11","slug":"choosing-the-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/09\/18\/choosing-the-portrait\/","title":{"rendered":"choosing the portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>when you die<br \/>\nwhich picture should they choose<br \/>\nto go with the obituary?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The leading young athlete,<br \/>\nevery muscle ready?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The more mature sophisticate,<!--more--><br \/>\njust before the jowls sagged?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The posed portrait for the nursing home,<br \/>\nwhen the face hung like pasta<br \/>\nfrom eyesockets and cheekbones?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>These photo albums overflow the shelves:<br \/>\nblack-and-white Brownie snapshots<br \/>\ntucked into ornate black corners<br \/>\non thick black pages,<br \/>\nplaces and subjects forgotten<br \/>\nor noted in pencil on the back,<br \/>\nstrips of color slides and negatives<br \/>\nfrom midcentury, fading Polaroids,<br \/>\nblue and pink tinged color shots,<br \/>\nall outnumbered by a plethora of digital photos<br \/>\nof smiling people<br \/>\nplaces and subjects forgotten<br \/>\nor noted in pencil on the back.<\/p>\n<p>The paper remembers<br \/>\nbetter than the brain;<br \/>\nthe heart aches<br \/>\nto enter the frames<br \/>\nand wrench out flesh and blood;<br \/>\nto hear the songs<br \/>\nthe crickets and the hush of leaves<br \/>\nfeel fresh sun and molten water<br \/>\nto see laughter in a gesture<br \/>\na dance in the heart<br \/>\na quick hug of hello or goodbye<br \/>\nsalt on the cheek<br \/>\nbetter than a kiss.<\/p>\n<p>O choose a photograph<br \/>\nand in it find<br \/>\nthe moment it was taken<br \/>\nand wonder if you knew<br \/>\nit would be used for this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The poet attended a funeral that caused him to consider the selection of a photo for the occasion. (#916) <a href=\"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2009\/09\/18\/choosing-the-portrait\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,3,416],"tags":[87,1002,684,476,686,307,685],"class_list":["post-2051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-poetry","category-thoughts-below-ground","tag-death","tag-family","tag-funeral","tag-memory","tag-parents","tag-parents-and-children","tag-pictures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}