by Sandhya Ramachandran
[box]Moving images make up a movie. Having said that, how can we forget its precedent – the still images? Sandhya Ramachandran pays a tribute to the photographs through a poem.[/box]Cut chop snip
A trim here
A spruce there
A dash of colour
Chemicals to rinse
Dark
And then bright, bright red lights
Surreal setting of real noir
To create and bare the reel.
Soaked
Dripping wet
Selectively darkened
Selectively brightened
Exposing it for the first time
Since its conception
Introducing it to light
Through darkness
Friends and strangers meet.
Poetry
Sheer Poetry
As images materialize
On a stark white canvas
As if some magical thought
Breathed into emptiness
A light frozen for eternity
Void slowly eaten up
Chewed by black lines
Gray forms
Coloured curves.
Choked
The void crumbles into itself
Filled
Saturated
With a zigzag of forms
Together symphonizing a whole
A composition they call an image
That which an eye saw
A heart leaped forth on seeing
A soul stirred for a moment
A brain triggered a response
A plastic shutter opened and closed
For a set time
Allowing just the bit of light
That the vision teased it to commit.
