She could have photographed my grandfather, Estes,
Feeding cows from slop bucket
While white chickens watched, waiting for kernels of corn.
Old, black cow stands 15 hands at hip;
Bloated teets sag tiredly from sharp, gaunt pelvis;
As white calf suckles, mother feeds from
Pail of farmer.
There is a thumbprint.
There is an underexposure of adhesive backing.
There is movement of a satisfied steer
Meandering off frame right.
There is a split-rail fence.
There is a straw hat.
There is a wedding ring on the left hand of my grandfather,
Who died in 1997.
I hold this photograph in memory of time not so long ago,
But before my own memory:
There was time before you, it says, and there is time after.
And there were many years more inside mind of man.
Not so many, for poultry, now dead,
Fine Sunday dinner, crisp fried in glossy bottom
Fine Sunday dinner, crisp fried in glossy bottom
Of iron skillet.
Nor many, for beeves, butchered now, swallowed now,
Ground into hamburger, or cooked long in gravies,
Well done.
Yet they were, once--with grasses that are now gone,
Fence rows, now gone,
Man in bib overalls, too,
Now Gone.
Where, now, is Florence Owens Thompson?
Where, now, is Estes Mervin Atkins?
Where, now, is Dorothea Margaretta Lange?
Where, now, is the person who left a thumbprint on a still wet glossy?
Kathlynn, you too have joined in this succession,
Of people who have documented
And of people who have been documented.
There is something left of you, too,
Still, here on my wall, an oil painting, trichromatic, smells like
Southeast Richland county,
In August, as weeds grow up around fenceposts,
Hiding crickets from hungry white chickens that scratched earth.
While calf suckles and cow chews cud
And farmer--frozen in time--lives in
Photograph, and painting, and memory
Of Claremont, Illinois in 1943.
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