Behind the Camera
From Wikipen
1.
A picture of a swordfight
with cardboard wrapping-paper rolls
taken Christmas Day, 1999;
four adults acting as children,
and one child, just shy of four,
pleased to no end
to join in the adults' game for once.
I am behind the camera,
the detached observer
of their sport, like a child
who has not yet learned to jump rope
waiting for someone to tell her
when to jump in. But no one does—
and if they did, the words would be vague
and unhelpful: how to explain something
one never needed to be taught?
It was natural to them,
the art of jumping in
when the rope reached the pinnacle
of its swing,
of grabbing a pause in conversation
for one's own words,
of boarding the merry-go-round
just when the empty space
came round again.
They never made a misstep,
a graceless maneuver,
or so it seemed
to one whose knees are still scarred
by the injuries that awkwardness
leaves with a child.
The bruises were not always
where others could see them,
and I was too stubborn,
too proud, or too shy
to admit how badly I'd been hurt.
Instead I'd claim desire
of a spot on the sidelines:
the better to watch you with, my dear,
and I was always the one
Only those not caught up in the action
can catch every detail.
2.
A good friend asked for my picture
a few days back. I gave him
my yearbook photo, the stiff, artificial shot
of myself as I never was:
formal, made-up, and posed, with hair
for once not flying in my face.
I hadn't any others,
being always on the outside
of a group, too far even
for the panoramic lens
to spot me, or more frequently
behind the camera, the notebook:
the perpetual detached observer,
always in, but never part of, a scene.
Even now that I have learned
to follow the patterns
of rise and fall, the turning wheel,
the tension and release
of conversation, I am never sure
there will be space for me.
I cannot shake the memory
of my scars. And so I remain
the one behind the camera,
