Their First Child

My maternal grandparents with their oldest child, my Aunt Marita Butler (Brimhall.) 

My second cousin recently photographed this in the home of her parents

and I copied it from her Facebook post. 

Is this the way we do history now???

Her father, Dwayne Butler Brimhall, was the oldest child of this baby;

he died two years ago at the age of 84. 

These ancestors were married in 1900, on the cusp of the Twentieth Century,

so this image would have been taken within the next couple of years. 

I think the young family was still living 

in the Mormon Mexican Colonies at this time. 

When they had to leave during the unrest at the time of the Mexican Revolution,

this grandmother was pregnant with my mother, her third child,

who was born in Douglas, Arizona in 1907.

This was definitely a time when it took a great deal of fabric 

to make a dress, even for a baby!

If this picture were sharper, I am almost certain we could see

(on her left hand resting on his shoulder) her gold wedding band,

which has now been entrusted to me, and which 

is still inscribed inside with their initials and the date of their marriage.

This is a very interesting folkloric frame, I will ask my cousin

if she knows anything about it;

it looks as if it had been carved from wood and painted

or coated with silver in some way.

I wonder how old it is, and how long this picture has been in it!

A Path Through Grass

A path through grass

worn as an old hoehandle

and pale as silver.

The silent things

that build bridges so many places,

roads after dead people, a handle,

a path in the field

moves like an unreal thing through the summer,

moon bridges built over the green seas.

Rolf Jacobsen

translated from the Norwegian by Robert Bly
The Roads Have Come to an End Now;
selected and last poems of Rolf Jacobsen, translated 
by Robert Bly, Roger Greenwald and Robert Hedin, 
Copper Canyon Press, 2001, page 63.