Sky, 1945

Barn at the shorn field's center,
old woman braying at the cows,
and beyond the graceless slant of trees
a dirt road limping west.
Judging simply, we would name the month
December, but can not explain the child
running barelegged against the wind.
Easy to say her father's beyond
the camera's frame, the sound of his axe
a constant reassurance.
We claim to know his wife's inside
their slat built house: a disturbance
of the grain that forms one window.
Records show she died in March, 1947,
without any explanation. The little girl
is age 47 now, sells shoes in Omaha.
What we discount but love
is the photographer's recollection:
drunk, outside of town, he followed
the music of someone singing, paused
on that specific hill to capture
neither light, nor life, nor line,
but just that flat expanse of sky.