Photos from My Trip

Inching out of the printer, here come
the slits of color that reveal a field in Devon
blazing like green fire, and a thatched cottage
and a couple of sheep and a horse. And Bath,
and gargoyles grinning from a pillared bas-relief.
Here comes Clovelly; tangled turquoise fishnets
drying on the rocks. And here’s my husband sketching
and the tide behind him pushing into
the narrow harbor, lifting the boats from the mud
almost as fast as this print is pulsing out of
the machine’s mouth. Here comes the day
rising over Glastonbury Tor, and the abbey
un-restored, a mouth gaping at heaven.
Here’s Bibury and its swans and the stream full of
the shapes of dark trout. Here come the clouds,
and then a blurred photo with rain on the lens.

Now it’s Exeter Cathedral and a late sun
burning red through a glassy Jesus onto my hand,
the hand that receives him now, urged out
bit by bit like a baby from the womb, on a blank
sheet of photo paper with colored ink
from a cartridge I bought at the store.

Luci Shaw