February 2022 Long Homestead in Winter — Las Cruces, circa 1932
Not in any literal sense a homestead: it was purchased you learned from an old deed sent you by a cousin. And in this winter photo, strange with magic of the never seen, a study in whites and grays, foreground trees and background barn shading towards true black, porch windows canvas covered against the cold, original adobe brooding behind, just one slender strand of air, smokey warm you guess, rising from a single flue suggests habitation, warmth inside. No one living knows its history now, when the barn was built; porch facing pristine snow now fades into surrounding silence. What was the day like when someone, your father perhaps, had hiked out the back door around towards the railroad track to capture the snow before it turned to mud underfoot; foot sodden you suspect later that morning when indoor voices might have called to breakfast, but leave your boots outside. All gone wherever memories 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, carry the present away. — Julian Long Julian Long is the author of Reading Evening Prayer in an Empty Church. The Art & Soul of Greensboro
O.Henry 45
