In the Olden Days
Our bedside tables creaked beneath the weight
of daily hardships, buffered only by doilies.
We did without, did things by hand. We got more
snow. Our Mickey Mouse was far from cute.
We specialized in quaint and quirky phrases
like "23 Skidoo." Our songs rang dark
with forced joy and naiveté: "Aint We Got Fun?"
Staring from family photographs, we look
older than we are. Even as children, our faces
are shadowed with doubt and parental disappointment,
as if to say to those looking years from now:
We persist. We persevere. We do this for you.
"In the Olden Days" by Richard Newman, from Borrowed Towns. © Word Press, 2005.
After looking at those Jacob Riis photos on Friday, I was struck by this poem's suggestion that the people in photos speak from their time to contemporary viewers. And I wished that our exercise had been slightly different. Instead of writing captions for the photos we might have written speeches for the people in them: 1) what would this child holding the baby have said to Riis's viewers and 2) what does she say to us.
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