How magical it all was:
all of us gathered in the sitting-room,
watching every moment of the setting up
of screen and projector, the reels fitted
into place, lights turned off, then click
and whirr and our own cinema,
the impossible happening before our eyes.
Now, cine-camera, projector and screen,
most likely broken, taking up space in our attic;
a few reels of film tossed in a box, unseen
by anyone for many years.
And those faces, blurred behind grainy footage
and jumpy camera-work: dead, long dead
most of them; before our children’s memories.
Ah, old magic, even I won’t risk seeing them again.
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