Poem PHOTOGRAPH and Photographic Image © Copyright To Anne Frandi-Coory
– All Rights Reserved 7 February 2012
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My poem *PHOTOGRAPH *
Dedicated to my Lebanese father, Joseph Jacob Habib Eleishah Coory
Photograph
…
A fleeting encounter
like an unopened rose
remains eternally
inside a withered heart
never to blossom
on a summer’s day
never to slowly fade.
…
Time mellows into memory
his face, his voice
cushioning past intensity
once a storm
now just a photograph
…
The man who was but shouldn’t have been
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My father Joseph, a long awaited first son, was a very sick new-born who wasn’t expected to survive. But against all odds, he lived. However, so certain were his parents that he would not survive, they neglected to register his birth. He spent the rest of his life, prone to illnesses. He ate a very limited diet and for all legal matters used another Lebanese man’s birth certificate, whose surname therein was spelt ‘Coori’. When I discovered my father’s fake birth certificate with the misspelled name and the wrong birth date, I assumed that the department of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Dunedin, had made the mistakes. During my extensive research into my Lebanese family tree and history, the truth was laid bare. – Anne Frandi-Coory.
BELOW: Joseph with his beloved dog, Tim, outside 103 Maitland Street, Dunedin, New Zealand, where I lived with him during my early teens.
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DRAGONS DESERTS and DREAMS
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anne frandi-coory 