The Knot

.

L'homme n'est qu'un noeud de relations,
les relations comptent seules pour l'homme

-- St-Exupéry

The four of

them together

beneath the roof

of the one

room school –-

someone’s relative

is in the photograph –-

in my hand it breaks, a leaf

found in a book,

the yellow veins, the brown

split edges. I

imagine them –- the four

together –- holding

hands; all are

dead now. A person

is a someone's

intertangled

complication of

relations

with other

someones, she

or he -- these

loose strings

coming together

to form a knot --

Alpine Butterly Bend: photo by Chris 73, 2004
Alpine Butterly Bend How To: photo by Chris 73, 2004
(via Wikimedia Commons)