by Ted Onulak

Created on: October 10, 2009

I found a box of photographs
Worn and sepia-toned
Funny old snapshots
Of distant times long gone

A picture of my mother
Dressed in a man's coat and hat
Collar pulled up around her neck
Flashing eyes under Motorman's cap

A moment that seemed hysterically funny
Among the piles of bombed out bricks
A snapshot of the end of war
With my father and uncle Nick

Happy to have nothing
Except for the promise of peace
I could almost hear the laughter
Of their youthful souls' release

They didn't know where they were going
They were just kids like me
Still years before reaching America
And a life that was yet to be

But captured by a Lica
That great inseparable three
Still looked at me with innocent eyes
The way they would always be

But the snapshot is now fading
Corners curled as if to fly away
So we gently close the old tin box
To be saved for some distant day

Only my mother is left
To tell of that bygone time
But that one old family snapshot
Still lingers softly in my mind

I am sure it was that same camera
That first captured me at play
So innocent and mischievous
In a time so far away

Sweet as stolen apples
These memories have grown
Remembered through old snapshots
Warm and sepia-toned

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