old newspapers

peeling back the lath,
plaster like crumpled snow at my feet,
pages of old newspaper,
yellowed with age, ink faded,
elderly and frail.

fragmented headlines, hieroglyphics:
"documents",
"cleric said",
"greek underground".
nothing makes sense when left too long
     in an unattended space,
nothing makes sense
     when out of its time, place.

here's a comics page,
stapled from stud to stud,
doctor kildare,
handsome, lantern jawed,
hinting at some dark secret of love
with nurse elizabeth.

so many hidden things,
so much lath and plaster.
you break through to find
doctors and nurses waiting for you,
clerics, documents you've kept for
exactly this moment,
when you were brave enough
to join the underground,
to fight for what you needed to believe in.



[ from a photograph by rae kennedy - blackbirdstudio.ca ]