James Brockway
A Photograph of Orta
Nineteen fifty-three. We felt
we'd discovered it ourselves –
the small lake hidden behind
the big, the famous one,
Maggiore.
I rowed us across to the island
in the middle – all the way round
and back. I was a young man then,
and strong.
Last night someone phoned from Orta.
It, too, had disappeared, been transformed.
Couldn't see the place for the tourists.
Coachloads everywhere. They'd have to get away.
Orta's still there in my photo, though:
the church, the piazza along the waterfront.
dappled with sunlight, peopled by people,
not a coachload in sight.
You are still there in the photo too,
bending forward, hands behind your back,
talking to the people, making yourself
one of them, yet still the cosmopolitan,
the city gentleman, dressed in a suit.
I'm nowhere to be seen. I'm up at a high window
in our hotel, adjusting the lens, taking a photo
of a piazza almost fifty years ago,
dappled with sunlight, still seeming yesterday,
a place, a person, I loved.
Page(s) 112
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