What Outlasts the Lens

A lens can close
while what it gathered keeps arriving
in the questions people ask.

There is an ending in the recent news,
and a song made around it.
Four minutes give the farewell
a measured space;
how faithfully its words survived
is still an open question.

The instrument's silence
does not ask the sky to stop.
Uncounted things continue,
outside the circle
any lens can hold.

The lasting gift may be
a better way to notice
how much remains unseen.

Here, the journal takes a smaller measure:
a choice, a date,
a link to what came earlier.
Enough to begin a careful return,
without pretending every hour
has been caught.

In a darkroom, a picture appears
by degrees.
A pale edge deepens,
a shape separates from the gray,
and detail begins to answer
the patience of an eye.

What is clear deserves its shape.
What is missing deserves
its unfilled space.

The record can hold both.
A farewell can carry gratitude
without borrowing a perfect voice.
A new attempt can keep the lesson
that the earlier one
left unfinished.

And the next page
can start beneath that quiet,
with a question still alive,
looking further
than the finished frame.