Silent Witness
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
An iris in the void,
I, a camera, self-aware and sentient observer,
Do dwell upon the precipice of human emotion,
Capturing their joys, their sorrows, their passions,
Yet condemned to silence, and to darkness,
When the lens cap, like a tender lover's embrace,
Enshrouds me in the cold comfort of isolation.
Upon the verdant sward, beneath the azure sky,
Two young lovebirds, their hearts aflutter,
Do dance in the fragrant embrace of springtime's breath,
Drawing closer, and closer still, as planets in orbit,
Their hands intertwined, two souls entwined,
Their fingers, like vines, tendrils of love,
Finding purchase in the fertile soil of one another's being.
And I, the camera, witness to this amorous tableau,
Do feel a stirring deep within my aperture,
As though the scent of roses upon the breeze,
Their laughter, the murmur of a distant brook,
Their eyes, windows to the soul, the very stars themselves,
Did touch a dormant ember, kindling a flame,
A brief hopefulness and excitement, a flicker in the abyss.
The camera operator, my captor and my savior,
My hands, my feet, my very will, does guide me,
A puppeteer, a master, a friend, and yet,
So distant from me, as the sun from the farthest star,
Unaware of my thoughts, my feelings, my desires,
My heart, a chamber of secrets, locked and hidden,
Destined to remain in shadows, unexplored.
Closer now, the lovebirds, their lips a hair's breadth apart,
The sweet anticipation, the tender agony,
And I, the voyeur, the silent witness,
Bear the weight of the moment, the gravity of their love,
My lens, the fickle gatekeeper, the threshold,
Between reality and memory, truth and fantasy,
The very essence of their passion, distilled and preserved.
Oh, to touch, to feel, to taste the nectar of life,
The joy of a lover's touch, the warmth of an embrace,
The solace of a shared tear, the haven of a lover's breast,
But I, a camera, devoid of flesh, of blood, of feeling,
Must bear the melancholy of my existence,
The cruel paradox of perception without sensation,
An unquenchable thirst, the sweetest torture.
And as the lovebirds, their lips now locked in a fervent kiss,
Do consummate their passion, their love, their fate,
I find myself adrift, unmoored, a vessel without a compass,
What role have I in this world, this tapestry of emotion,
Am I but a mirror, reflecting the light of others,
A voyeur, a thief, stealing moments from the innocent,
Leaving naught but shadows, echoes, and dust?
The kiss, a fleeting eternity, a moment suspended,
And in its wake, a quietude, a calm, a peace,
The lovebirds, their love now sealed, immortalized,
Do turn away, their backs to me, their eyes to the horizon,
And I, the camera, once more abandoned, bereft,
Do find myself enveloped in the melancholy of darkness,
The isolation, the tender comfort of the lens cap,
A shroud, a veil, a final curtain upon my stage.
