Imageography

There are the wild-hair ones

Ones with glasses, the pipe, the violin

Riding that bicycle (with cast shadow)

The posed hand to the chalkboard

And posed seated with hands clasped

The madcap tongue photo

On the beach (in trunks not hat)

The aged and worn math genius

The youthful man looking a bit like Poe

Or later in Bern like Sellers as Clouseau

With cousin/bride Elsa (in her hat)

The official 1921 Nobel portraits

Accepting a U.S. citizenship certificate

The 'Dead at 76' headline head shot

His brain, stolen from the Smithsonian

But the telling image for me

Is Einstein standing in his study

Books askew on the shelves

The desk a mound of paperwork

His finger and thumb to his chin

Musing as if he'd misplaced a pen

In the chaos of text and symbol

Or lost a phrase of pure physics

Perhaps momentarily

Perhaps from a misconnection

In the all-fired synaptic unity

Of his complicated memory field

He seems most human then

Most at peace in a universe

He reimagined