“I have always had a thing about old photographs. The older pictures have an uncanny ability of suggesting that there is another world where the departed are. A black and white photograph is a document of an absence, and is almost curiously metaphysical. I have always hoarded them. They represent a sense of otherness. The figures in photographs have been muted, and they stare out at you as if they are asking for a chance to say something.”

—W.G. Sebald, The Questionable Business of Writing

*

The dimming of the light makes the picture clearer

It’s just an old photograph, there’s nothing to hide

When the world was just beginning.

I memorized her face so it’s not forgotten

I hear the wind whistle in, come back anytime

And we’ll mix our lives together

Heaven knows, what keeps mankind alive

Every hand goes searching for its partner in crime

Under chairs and behind tables

Connecting to places we have known

I’m looking for a home, where the wheels are turning

Home, why I keep returning

Home, where my world Is breaking in two.

Home, with the neighbors fighting

Home, always so exciting

Home, were my parents telling the truth?

Home, such a body feeling

Home, no one ever speaking

Home, with our bodies touching

Home, and the cameras watching

Home, will infect whatever you do

Where home, comes to life from out of the blue

Tiny little box from a beach at sunset

I took a drink from a jar and into my head

Familiar smells and flavours

Vehicles are stuck on the plains of heaven

I’ve seen their wheels spinnin round

And everywhere I can hear those people saying

That the eye is the measure of the man

You can fly from the stuff that spills around you

We’re home and the band keeps marching on

Connecting to every living soul

Compassion for things I’ll never know.

"HOME"; by David Byrne

from "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today"