Iconic Status

by R. D. Ashby

What never ceases to impress
is how, in a photo, a man assumes
iconic status.

Achievement becomes the man,
its deathless facets human features:
a still life in perpetuity.

Life without breath,
eyes set in openness, the mouth
in closure of all that's been said.

We are easily epitomized
in all our complexity of nature and days
by a fixed image.

So what is life so compounded
in a frozen moment
that sums and surpasses all the living?

17-Dec-2006

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