Blue Against the Sky

I keep wondering what it would be like to totally retire—just being able to quite trying. I never signed on for wrangling and the trough keeps getting farther away. Does anyone care who the Photo Secessionist were or even Group f/64? Does the Linked Ring matter anymore or the Life photographers. Who cares how innovative Smith or Turner or Stern or Hass or even Steichen’s Family of Man was. If they don’t matter why do I think that I do? What a conundrum.

I always wondered about living in a very small house in the middle of a very large oil patch. It won’t bring back the sounds of the one cylinder diesel engines and the rod lines rubbing on their wooden supports but it would smell right. I miss the smell of the oil patch and the weeds that smelled like pepper and the sun hot sands of the river bottom and the red mud ladden water. I really miss North Texas and am very envious of those that stayed there for their entire lives. Does anyone else wonder what happened to Titanic or even when they tore the welding shop down--it was there and then it wasn't. Why did they change the name of the Oklahoma Cutoff to Berry Street? Granddad and us were the only people on the Cutoff that had berry patches. A friend suggested the other day that we go berry picking. I told her no thank you I had my fill of berry picking. She said she was afraid of snakes but I never saw a snake in a berry patch--only thorns. I would prefer snakes. At least they are afraid of you, thorns aren't. But then you think about a big bowl of freshly picked blackberries with cream and sugar--well the sugar would probably be against the law now but the blackberies and cream would still be good.

I will exchange a city for a sunset,
The tramp of legions for a wind’s wild cry;
And all the braggart thrusts of steel triumphant
For one far summit, blue against the sky.
                    __Marie Blake, Barter