Timothy’s Eye
For Tim Hetherington
By Julie Flanders
A man holds a baby
In a photograph
That holds the whole war
You took this picture just before
A boy holds a gun
In a photograph
He shoots the sky, and then…
You took this picture
Just when the sun was coming down
And the night was trying to rise over
A broken world
Becoming holy again
Through your eyes
I see you everywhere
In the ghosts you gave us
I see you
In the ways you tried to save us
From ourselves
Who has the courage to see with the heart
Who has the courage to show us the whole world
Falling apart
Maybe this sadness won’t be forever
Maybe we will learn to live
Together
Maybe you will look down from another place
And you will see a child
With an open trusting smiling face
And you will know you made the world
More safe
You could not say why
But you knew you had to touch and change us
You knew you had to frame and hold us
In the camera’s eye
A family of strangers
Saying goodbye
You could not say why
But you knew
You had to love the world or die
Trying
Photo by Tim Hetherington
October Process 