Long Homestead in Winter

February 2022

Long Homestead in Winter

— L as Cruces, circa 1932

Not in any literal sense a homestead: it was purchased you lear ned f rom an old deed sent you by a cousin. A nd in this winter photo, strange with magic of the never seen, a st udy in whites and grays, foreground trees and background bar n shading towards tr ue black, porch windows canvas covered against the cold, or iginal adobe brooding behind, just one slender strand of air, smokey war m you g uess, r ising f rom a single flue suggests habitation, war mth inside. No one living knows its histor y now, when the bar n was built; porch facing pr istine snow now fades into sur rounding silence. W hat was the day like when someone, your father perhaps, had hiked out the back door around towards the railroad track to capt ure the snow before it t ur ned to mud under foot; foot sodden you suspect later that mor ning when indoor voices might have called to breakfast, but leave your boots outside. A ll gone wherever memor ies are stored — you never saw the place in winter but you slept many a summer night there on that porch already mythical, heard the Santa Fe hoot by, carr y the present away. — Julian L ong

Julian L ong is the author of Reading Evening Prayer in an Empty Church.