Something like a Sailboat

This is Nigella. A flower that grows throughout June and July in New Jersey. I can't remember whether it was myself or my father who took this photo.

In this case, it is simple to remember something like the life of these things beyond the picture representing them. It is simple to understand, first, a technical means of existence as "photo," and, second, a life as "picture." Imagining life requires some necessary movement. Who could deny memory's wandering legs as they crawl into the photo? Where could we deposit our many stories if not here?

I would not remember this picture if it had not been for the strange fascination my mother had for moths. Without such attention, this would seem no more than an attempt to recovery scenery. As a memory without a direct photographic referral (i.e. as a story that must be re-membered without a personal photo prompt), the memory of moth is elastic, and it allows me to maintain that the above photo is more than a photo. It is a picture holding onto a memory that is no more than a story.

The moths I remember flew above the Nigella like birds. And the flowers, adapting to the scene, appeared as Sailboats, casually drifting into the wind.