“Cape Cod” by Kristine Ong Muslim

Harry Callahan, Cape Cod, 1947, gelatin silver print on paper. Gift of Anne Wilkes Tucker in honor of President John E. and Susan V. Klein, 2013. Collection of the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, founded as Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

after Harry Callahan’s Cape Cod

Wouldn’t it be grand if the world ended like this—quieted down by mouthful upon mouthful of brine, leveled by gravity, the taut horizon taking on a semblance of hope that beckoned from a distance, the reminder of hope being always there but unreachable? And because this candid snapshot of desolation is rendered solely in black and white, nobody could tell whether the expanse is that of sand or snow, sea or sky. Among the variations of gray, do you notice a ship, a mountain, a house, a coconut tree, a lighthouse on an island, a man walking his blind dog? Don’t think that just because you find them invisible that they no longer exist. Now, did the sun shine at last? Or are those rain clouds slowly gathering strength, their bitterness expanding, encroaching where light should be?

Learn more about the author of this poem, Kristine Ong Muslim, at http://kristinemuslim.weebly.com