ACCOUNT OF MY DAYS
Sequence: 8
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.