Rays of Sunlight - Three

The Camera

Inside the box obscure whose tiny aperture
Is smaller than a small gnat's puny single eye
The rays of light combine to paint an image sure
And accurate but curiously all awry.

What’s on the left out there, inside is on the right,
What is on top out in the world is here the base,
From which we must infer that single rays of light
Are needle-hard and, hitting something, bounce a ways.

Light from the floor comes up toward the tiny hole
And angles to the top of film to be exposed
(Those were the days) or the magnetic new control
That grasps and holds the light after the shutter’s closed.

As from below, so from above, directions change.
From left to right and those two also turned about.
He who first saw this must have thought it very strange
Until he gave it thought and had it figured out.

Magical camera obscura, Light meet Dark,
Be friends and weave us images splendiferous
With nature’s solar light or electronic spark:
Your invention was a deed benign and glorious.