whenever he opened Touch the Earth he found himself looking among the circa photographs for the sepiacoloured one of a Flathead child

                  he read it in ’71 owned a First Edition bought it with money he earned from his paper route a penny a paper

the image arrested him then it arrests him every time he looks at it he gazes  he tries to feel the heat of the sun smell the woods smell  more than onehundred years earlier

Yes he idealises  he is fascinated

the child is in doeskin fringed beaded a moccasined right foot on a tree root growing in a grassy field growing well-behind the child and the tree out of focus are a grove of similar trees mates  which made him curious how the tree beside the boy had grown up so far away from the others

                                                            he had a sneaking suspicion that would never be quelled

he grew upmatured far away from his parents his ten brothers and sistershis family  sympathetic though uninvolved  it suited him  he figured it suited them

it wasnt discussed

the child wore a squat feathered headdress  appearing crownlike  stiff feathers straight up

around their neck hung a fourstrand necklace of shell and beads stones and from it hung what appeared to be a sandscrubbed white shell its concave face turned out and inside it a delicate strand of beads that halfway down was intersected and sided by two large molten beads shaped like freshwater pearls that shook him with unexpected frisson

the childs fringesleeved tunic was belted at the waist what the belt was made of he couldnt say it was out of focus

wasnt an Indians soul stole by a photograph  if he ever met a celebrity craving the spotlight or limelight hed ask

what brought him to this image every time he opened the bookwhat captivated him seeing it every time was the childs aura  exuding from their chest 

                                 asif viewed a perfect circle through imperfect glass  drifting to haze

the child is androgynous

each  sex  beckoned him

breathtaking

a romantic  he suspected

1224,  Monday,  14  10. 19

1156,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  15  4. 20

Elton John  Indian Sunset  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qd08FyXY3E