Picture Frame - a Poem

Picture Frame - a Poem

The dusk before night appears. After a day of warmth,
bellowing wind and the bare naked trees without leaves
and crumpling flowers on the frigid boughs holding on
to the dear life as it recedes from the disappearing
memories of balmy spring.

Rummaging through old photo albums of days
fade out color, smudging corners of decaying
picture frames, brings back those laughter
loud and alive, those faces and eyes no longer
in visible spectrum of this glorious world.

As dusk turns into a night, the sliver of broken moon
glows the tiny speckles of icicles on the metallic roofs
of parked cars on the street, while the dark alleys
and the rows of neat slumbering houses prepare for
a long wintry night of dreamless sleep.

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I wrote this poem after getting inspired reading the following prosy poem of Raymond Carver. His internal rhyming, the brilliance in musical devices that this writer of immense talent wrote, is beyond my rudimentary poetic ability at this point of my life.

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After-Glow by Raymond Carver

The dusk of evening comes on. Earlier a little rain
had fallen. You open a drawer and find inside
the man's photograph, knowing he has only two years
to live. He doesn't know this, of course,
that's why he can mug for the camera.
How could he know what's taking root in his head
at this moment? If one looks to the right
through boughs and tree trunks, there can be seen
crimson patches of the after-glow. No shadows, no
half-shadows. It is still and dump....
The man goes on mugging. I put the picture back
in its place along with the others and give
my attention instead to the after-glow along the far ridge,
light golden on the roses in the garden.
Then I can't help myself, I glance once more
at the picture. The wink, the broad smile,
the jaunty slant of the cigarette.