--Berenice Abbott, photographer, 1940s--




                             In this way the body 
                             is transformed to pure motion, 
                             a curve away from stillness.  
                             The wrench tumbling over itself, 
                             thrown into graceful orbit.
Scientists always tell me, 
You can't photograph this.  
My camera is never good enough 
to reveal the attraction 
in this universe.
Water droplets that form then fall, 
suspension of gravity 
visible in their long curls, 
in globes breaking apart.
                           While photographing New York 
                           I could never keep up with chaos.
                           My obsession:  Document.
                           If only the camera could catch 
                           the swift surfaces, the city 
                           always under construction, skyscrapers, 
                           commuters underneath the El,
                           wash strung between tenement rows.
The city always in motion.  
Hurrying crowds gathered round me 
when I set up my camera, 
searching out 
that vanishing instant--
that Victorian mansion threatened 
by the wrecking ball.
                      I'm not a nice person.  That's 
                      what I tell these scientists 
                      who say you'll never show waves
                      rippling in a tank, 
                      who laugh at my inventions:  
                      a synchronizing flash--where 
                      balls bounce in precise 
                      measure--a cellophane filter, 
                      camera obscuras in reverse.
I prove them wrong.  
My camera illuminates kinesis, 
a pendulum swinging 
on its axis, the slow 
unfolding.  Those truths once 
hidden from me‹
the structure of soap bubbles, 
magnetism and electricity 
in steel filings.  
                  Wonders no less miraculous 
                  than Greenwich Village,
                  the conservation 
                  of mass with the world 
                  unfinished, rushing about, 
                  a city teeming with new visions.

*first appeared in Queens Quarterly 2001