SERENDIPITY
Copyright Jonathan Marcus
Like a director possessed, in her straw hat
she barked orders between giggles, “No! Not like that!”
She had arranged the bears just so in the sand,
placed palms at their feet and fruit in their hands.
She focused the camera and declared to her man,
“Now leap over these bears with the grace of Pan!”
No danseur he, and without aid of cables,
he tried and tried but seemed utterly unable
to leap with the grace this artist demanded
but in desperation to avoid being remanded
he summoned all muscles and pulled in his paunch
and by sheer concentration he effected a launch
and soared over the bruins like and eagle in ruins
while she fired the shutter on these crazy do-ins.
“Yes!” she pranced like a touchdown maker,
“I knew you could be a picture-taker!”
So thrilled were they at the moment captured
the thought of the image left them enraptured.
But anticipation was fractured when, packing to go,
right there out of place atop the bureau
was sitting what should have been shot and exposed –
the film! The film in the camera is there by the clothes!
They would have raged and cried but couldn’t stop laughing
at the shock and the folly of this lost photo-graphing.
Though the image is forever lost to the world,
it remains burnished and brightly unfurled
for these lovers who accidentally minted
a way to take pictures that don’t need to be printed.