The Photograph

When we two kids had tumbled into the back seat of the car, mom double checked to see that she had the Argus while Dad drove off down the caliche street alongside our house to head for the lake. The sun was past halfway down the afternoon of one of those perfect summer days whose details escape you, but whose wholeness lingers forever.

They were off to catch a photograph of the sun setting across the lake. The sky was clear and there was no breeze as they finally rolled up to park and they got out to select the best view. The sun was now getting close to the edge of the world and the water was a liquid mirror. They picked a spot with willow trees at the edge of the composition and the sun lay beside two small peaks that stood side by side on the flat horizon. Two peaks that had been a landmark long before there was a fort or a frontier town, and long before we had come along.

The twilight descended and a soft click marked the moment of sampling a cup from the river of time…a sample of the simple and safe comforts of youth, and hope, and unknown futures…

It was a view of a soft and darkening twilight with the sun forever poised above its watery reflection and the boundary between the past and the future…a boundary consisting of a thin, familiar line. A view that still brings with it peace and contentment…a window that looks out onto a world that the river has long-since flowed past.

The print hung for a long time in my parent’s home, and it now has its special place above my bed, where rising or setting, I can steep myself in its memories.