Extended Development

It didn’t always work like this
There was a time when you had to get your hands dirty
When you were in the dark for most of it
Fumbling was a given.
If you needed more contrast, more saturation;
Darker darks and brighter brights.
They called it Extended Development.
Meant you spent longer inhaling chemicals,
Longer up to your wrists.
It wasn’t always easy…

Grandpa was a navy photographer.
Young, red-faced, with the sleeves rolled up to his,
Fists of fingers like fat rolls of coins.
He looked like Popeye the sailor man come to life.
Crooked smile, toughed of chest hair,
He showed up to World War 2 with a smirk and a hobby.
When they asked him if he knew much about photography,
He lied…. learned to read Europe like a map.
Upside down, from the height of a fighter plane.
Camera snapping, eyelids flapping,
The darkest darks and the brightest brights,
He learned war like he could read his way home.

When other men returned,
They put their weapons out to rust,
But he brought the lenses and the cameras home with him.
Opened a shop, turned it into a family affair.
My father was born into this world of black and white.
His basketball hands learned the clicks and slides
Of lens into frame, film into camera, chemical into plastic bin.
His father knew the equipment, but not the art.
He knew the darks, but not the brights.
My father learned the magic;
Spent his time following light. 
Once, he traveled across the country to follow a forest fire.
Hunted it with his camera for a week.
“Follow the light,” he said. “Follow the light.”
There are parts of me I only recognize from photographs.

The loft on bakers street with creaky hallways,
The 12 foot ceilings, white walls and cold floors,
This was my mother’s home.
Before she was mother, before she was wife,
She was artist… and the only two rooms in the house
With walls that reached all the way up to the ceiling
And doors that opened and closed,
Were the bathroom and the darkroom.
The darkroom, she built herself,
With custom made stainless steel sinks,
An 8 by 10 bed enlarger 
That moved up and down by a giant hand crank,
A bank of color balanced lights, 
A white glass wall for viewing prints,
A drying rack that moved in and out from the wall…

My mother built herself a darkroom,
Made it her home, fell in love a man with basketball hands
With the way he looked at light.
They got married, had a baby, moved to a house near a park,
But they kept the loft on bakers street 
For birthday parties and treasure hunts…
They baby tipped the gray scale,
Filled her parent’s photo albums 
With red balloons and yellow icing.
The baby grew into a girl without freckles, with a crooked smile, 
Who didn’t understand why her friends 
Did not have darkrooms in their houses,
Who never saw her parents kiss,
Who never saw them hold hands.

But one day another baby showed up,
With perfect straight hair and bubble gum cheeks,
They named him sweet potato,
And when he laughed, he laughed so loudly
He scared the pigeons on the fire escape.
And the four of them lived in that house near the park,
The girl with no freckles, the sweet potato boy,
The basketball father and the darkroom mother,
And they lit their candles and said their prayers,
And the corners of their photographs curled.

One day, some towers fell,
And the house near the park
became a house under ash…so they escaped
In backpacks, on bicycles, to darkrooms.
But the loft on bakers street was built for an artist,
Not a family of pigeons and walls that do not reach the ceiling,
Do not hold in the yelling..
And the man with basketball hands put his weapons out to rust.
He could not fight this war… and no maps pointed home.
His hands no longer fit his camera.
No longer fit his wife’s, no longer fit his body.
The sweet potato boy mashed his fists into his mouth
Until he had nothing more to say… 
So the girl without freckles went treasure hunting on her own.

And on bakers street in the building with creaky hallways,
In a loft with the 12 foot ceilings,
And a darkroom with too many sinks
Under the color balanced lights, she found a note,
Tacked to the wall with a thumbtack,
Left over from a time before tower…
From a time before babies… 
And the note said..
“A guy sure loves a girl who works in the darkroom.”
It was a year before my father picked up a camera again.
His first time out he followed the Christmas lights,
Dotting their way through New York City’s trees,
Tiny dots of light blinking out at him 
From out of the darkest darks….
A year later he traveled across the country
To follow a forest fire, stayed for a week,
Hunting it with his camera.
It was ravaging the west coast,
Eating 18 wheeler trucks in its stride.
On the other side of  the country I went to class.
And wrote a poem in the margins of my notebook.
We have both learned the art of capture.
Maybe we are learning the art of embracing.
Maybe we are learning the art of letting go…. 


If you like this poem check out my new original blog :D extended-development which I named after this poem