Photography Class - Lessons in Black and White

The teacher promises
failure if she’s forced
to look at yet another shot
of the clichéd Angel Oak,
but here I am
beneath the branches,
focusing on moss,
on lyrical limb
and longsuffering ghosts.

I want to use real film,
a darkened room,
where history can loom
and seep into truth
of the way it was then
the way it is now,
of black and white failure
that still holds to its roots.