end credits

after the movie is over 

i like to watch the end credits

as they scroll the music playing returns to the movie's themes

& i like reading the names of the crews

that worked on the film 

& all that entails for movies are mostly

international productions 

plus you can tell what governments give

good tax incentives to entice moviemakers 

to make their movies there

it's kind of a lesson on a sector of the economy

a scan of where & how well it is faring 

but even in poor economies films do get made

even in depressions & wars

but it's the names i am most interested in

all those thousands of people 

necessary to get this production made 

& on to the screen 

besides the music of their names

as a poet i am attracted to names

because they are markers of individual lives

& sometimes names are music

especially ordinary sounding names

why & how & why again

i'm fucked if i know

perhaps it is because the production of a film,

in the useful phrase coined by the poet jaan kaplinski,

is located on a wandering border

of which the end credits illuminate

there is only one earth & one human species

because movies are our human stories

& what makes you 

you & me me & you again

can often be found scrolling at the end of the film

on the silverscreen