Best Intentions

.

Rural schoolchildren, San Augustine County, Texas: photo by John Vachon, 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Meant to be

a propaganda image

for the "war effort" --

the four of

them together

beneath the low roof

of the one

room school --

someone’s relative

is in the photograph –-

I understand it

as an enhanced

past. And can't help half

imagining half

remembering the original:

in my hand it breaks, a leaf

found in a book,

the yellow veins, the brown

split edges.  All

that direct open

American

certainty of life,

all

that awkward earnestness,

all the best

laid plans, all

the good intentions

in the world.

Rural schoolgirl, San Augustine County, Texas: photo by John Vachon, 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

This post is dedicated to Hazen Walker