The moment chosen for this
photograph, and its composition, was
affected by my love for a poem by Eli Siegel titled "Looking For
Something, Finger in Mouth". Its 4 lines (quoted below) have beautiful
music and drama, as they describe a little child of long ago, with a
hope to see the world, in all its power and vastness, as a friend.
The little child in my photograph sits, finger in mouth, with a contemplative look on his face. He is near things that, with all their difference, are related to him, and this makes them friendly. Wearing white, bathed in light, he stands out against a background, both dark and bright. Yet, see how his shadow falls behind him and becomes part of that background, joins him to it? The chair to his left is a companion, quietly stating, "I am like you", with its own back, and legs, and rounded seat. There are abstract shapes we can’t quite identify, like the white area in the lower right. Its curves and lines belong to a lively dog that, moments before I took this picture, licked the little child's face, and then wandered almost completely out of the picture frame. The words TO GO in the window sign have curve and straight line, and there is the rotundity of the little child’s head, and the straightness of his back and limbs. These two words have a meaning he will illustrate every day of his life: to go forth into a world that, I am trying to show here, is a means of knowing himself, and deserves his friendship, because little child and world have the opposites—eternal and everyday—in common.
Looking for Something, Finger in Mouth
And when out of Assyria the Middle Ages
And a little child, finger in mouth, shone
on by sun, in Sunday, in afternoon,
roaming on a beach; ocean roaring,
The little child in my photograph sits, finger in mouth, with a contemplative look on his face. He is near things that, with all their difference, are related to him, and this makes them friendly. Wearing white, bathed in light, he stands out against a background, both dark and bright. Yet, see how his shadow falls behind him and becomes part of that background, joins him to it? The chair to his left is a companion, quietly stating, "I am like you", with its own back, and legs, and rounded seat. There are abstract shapes we can’t quite identify, like the white area in the lower right. Its curves and lines belong to a lively dog that, moments before I took this picture, licked the little child's face, and then wandered almost completely out of the picture frame. The words TO GO in the window sign have curve and straight line, and there is the rotundity of the little child’s head, and the straightness of his back and limbs. These two words have a meaning he will illustrate every day of his life: to go forth into a world that, I am trying to show here, is a means of knowing himself, and deserves his friendship, because little child and world have the opposites—eternal and everyday—in common.
Looking for Something, Finger in Mouth
And when out of Assyria the Middle Ages
And a little child, finger in mouth, shone
on by sun, in Sunday, in afternoon,
roaming on a beach; ocean roaring,
big, near;
Looking for something, finger in
mouth,
Looking for something, finger in mouth.
Looking for something, finger in mouth.