3x5 SNAPSHOT Five Buzzards on the lawn, all related to me. The black clothing of the one in the middle hides all but her inscrutable face. Salome. Of the men, one is Doc, one is Alpha, one is John, one is Moses, who made popcorn for his people on the square in Wakarusa every Saturday. The town band playing, farmers selling from their wagons, children running screaming to and from the store with the soda fountain in back. It is full summer. A tree massy with leaves towers behind them, a dirt road runs nearby with more trees behind it thick enough to close off the horizon. The grass is worn where they stand, and there is a low white railing marking the edge of something--a parking area? a field where chldren play? a lot deeded to a church for a graveyard? It is a summer day. The weather is fine. They have survived one century and stand sturdily in the next. They are there on another day of the absence of those many who were old when they were young and tried to explain the exact mix of sternness and gentleness necessary for life. It is only a photograph, not reality, the present moment. But they know that, photography or not, any moment of the moments we've had can come back, that they all continue just because they once were, even if the snapshot is lost, the people long gone, no one to remember, no story to tell.