Corduroy jodpurs

A western saddle

And a cloth cap

Proud and happy

As any boy could be

"Arthur and Ford fishing 1919"

Shot by an adult

(Witness the steady hand

that captures the wildflowers

the shadows on their broad straw hats

reflections of a split-rail fence)

standing opposite them,

on the far side of the pond,

amid the snake-doctors and the mud,

Kodak in hand,

Ford Sr.?

And "Moma July, 1919"

strolls beside the pond,

in white big city shoes,

Purse tucked behind her,

While either Ford or Arthur, still straw-hatted,

approaches a canvas-topped touring car.

"Moma and Mrs. Graham at fish hatchery 1919"

Moma and Mrs. G. sit atop a graceful concrete

arch.

"Arthur on Dixie", likewise 1919,

rather ill at ease.

On the roof behind the barn, behind him,

can be made out this cryptic mark:

H.V.J.M.[?]

"Papa's Mill 1919", my grandfather most regal amid a wrack of

cut lumber,

might as easily be the record

of some later demolition, and

His cotton sleeves are rolled

to but not past the elbow,

striped, with a white neckband

for the attachment of a collar.

Behind him stands a cone of sawdust some thirty feet in height.

(How that feels to tumble down,

or smells when it is wet)

II.

The mechanism: stamped black tin,

Leatherette over cardboard, bits of boxwood,

A lens

The shutter falls

Forever

Dividing that from this.

Now in high-ceiling bedrooms,

unoccupied, unvisited,

in the bottom drawers of veneered bureaus

in cool chemical darkness curl commemorative

montages of the country's World War dead,

just as I myself discovered