At the end of The Family of Man
the last photograph, a boy and girl,probably siblings, five and three maybe,
pose, backs to us as they enter a forestin soft focus, the leaves silver, shivering
toward expectations beyond the scope of dawn.Beneath it: A world to be born under their footsteps—
Saint-John Perse. Reader, I wish I could speak to youwithout such illustration of what occurs to me
at dawn now, in my seventies, but this one imageis what I turn to, stuporous and half-awake,
my aching hand about my coffee cup assurancethe body I am carrying is a gift,
one I will give back after the last days.That we live again is certain, that our death
is always imminent: this is the breath I drawof faith recurrent as the sun now dappling
my back window, dappling my front at dusk.The children walk off, they are any one of us
come back; they walk toward their death.Immortal, you and I, soon to be born,
rush out to enter them again.