At the Clothesline

Millie was in the backyard hanging the
laundry. I was watching her from the kitchen
window. Why does this give me so much pleasure?
Because I love her in a million ways, and because
I love the idea of clean laundry flapping in
the wind. It's timeless, a new beginning, a
promise of tomorrow. Clothespins! God, I love
clothespins. We should stock up on them. Some
day they may stop making them, and then what?
If I were a painter, I would paint Millie hanging
the laundry. That would be a painting that
would make you happy, and break your heart.
You would never know what was in her mind, big
thoughts, little thoughts, no thoughts. Did she
see the hawk circling overhead? Did she
hate hanging laundry? Was she going to run away
with a sailor? The sheets billowing like sails
on an ancient skiff, the socks waving goodbye.
Millie, O Millie, do you remember me? The man
who traveled with cloth napkins and loved you
in the great storm.

James Tate

Untitled (Field of Daisies and Lupins), c. 1978
William Eggleston

These Fevered
Days - to take
them to the
Forest
Where Waters
cool around
the mosses crawl -
And shade
is all that
devastates the
stillness
Seems it
sometimes
this would
be all - 

Emily Dickinson 

Michael West, 1930
Jon Boris

  

The Blue Sky - Dana, 1923
Edward Steichen

Norma Shearer, Movie Star, ca.1924
Alfred Cheney Johnston

Lee Miller, 1928
Edward Steichen

Lee Miller, 1929
Man Ray

Katherine Dudley, 1922
Alfred Stieglitz

You are my song, my dark blue dream
Of doves, of winter's drowsy drone,
And sleighs that slow and golden go
Through gray blue shadows on the snow.

Velimir Khlebnikov, 1907

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Wes Anderson