Igor Clark

It's a bright, crisp day on the autumn cusp of summer, and I’m in Portland, Maine; wandering, solitary, drinking in the surroundings and stealing snaps away with me.

As I straighten from my crouch, a young woman approaches me, an equally young man in tow. The boy, uncertain, sports a shock of orange hair; the girl wields a Sony DSLR and a resolute expression. We stand face to face, exchanging an expectant stare as though each would read the other’s intention through the eye – and, almost defiantly, she raises the camera and steals in turn a snap from me.

She lowers her device, holds my gaze for a moment, and walks calmly away. The boy follows. Not a word is spoken.

I stand for a moment, let it pass without question, and feel free.

Zoom out from here. Pass through the wrought-iron gateway, back away down the churned, dried mud path ’til your feet are planted firmly on the cracked light grey tarmac, Leroy's firmament-focused monument still in your sights; feel the fixity, and spin yourself slowly ’round. A solitary slatted wooden house; ploughed fields, meadows a little further off, woods covering distant hills. How patiently has this land lain silent, immemorial, still and strong, untouched, its surface barely scratched, blissfully unaware of the arrival of these mayflies who flare briefly in an illuminated access of passion, a charge of excitement, yet immediately fade, scattering their corporeal detritus as though a thin cover of dust - and there is no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither is there any more pain, for these former things have passed away - and still the land lies in dignified repose, unmolested, timeless … fleeting.