POETRY
View from the Window at Le Gras, c. 1826
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/cc1974b5675245485764ff17bc955434430c24418ecc9db7761cf95ae6ccc035/View_from_the_Window_at_Le_Gras-_Joseph_Nicephore_Niepce-_uncompressed_UMN_source.jpg)
by Stephanie Mitchell
Escher sketch
in binary light and shadow
Sun writing
lavender oil and petroleum
on a pewter plate
The first ‘decisive moment’
lasted eight hours
It transpired in 1826
or 1827 —
an odd uncertainty
for a medium
rooted in recording
precise fractions of time
A wash house, a pigeon house
a bake house roof
and an orchard pear tree
The work room window
frames the modest View
Niépce’s original
is eclipsed by Daguerre
For nearly fifty years
it slips into obscurity.
Published on October 18, 2023
by Harvard Review Online
This is the first piece from a larger project
of poems responding to photographs
throughout the author’s life as a photographer.