are smooth and giving,
as if developed to face our world
by the voice of developer in the age of childhood magic
by the caressing of the stabilizer which will not allow
the face to darken and the picture to disappear.
Th e faces on the hundred-year old photographs face the lens
of the camera as if peering into a telescope
which penetrates the cosmic mist
and discovers barely suspected white holes
with the nascent lights of planets.
We don’t know the faces on the hundred-year old photographs.
We give them names of great grandmothers
according to the eyes of our daughters.
We compare them to the only one preserved face of the father
and for a moment resurrect the fi gure of the great grandfather
who was mortally wounded in the Prussian War.
Th e faces on the hundred-year old photographs
are put away in the dusty boxes
and we know as never before
that we were here a long time before Monsieur Daguerre,
before the silver plate preserved the features of those
who pass through the walls of time and dream
and take our digitized faces
as a memento for a worse time.