My friend Jose Faus in the distance at Baker Wetlands in Kansas, 2017. It was evening. We were alone. I saw a Wilson’s Snipe. I’d recently stopped writing poetry. Jose, a poet, ventured into birding with me so we could spend time together that way. It wasn’t half bad, being a birder and not a poet.
My family on my mother’s side. 1. My great-grandparents, Jesse and Sarah. 2. My grandfather, my great-grandfather, and horses. 3. My great-grandparents on their porch, children all around the place, many outside the frame. 4. My grandfather, great-grandfather, great-grandmother, a great-aunt, another great-aunt, I think, and a baby who was supposed to be her sibling but was really her child. This was their not-nice house. 5. My family on the porch of their nice house. The dead (suicide, unknown cause) are propped up in framed images in front of the living.
Dana Henry Martin 