A moment in time

In my life, there are a few moments that I would love to revisit.

This is one of them.

It is an afternoon, sometime in the fall. Rain is imminent, with the smell on the air.

I’m alone with my camera. In a spot that has not much changed over 70 odd years, since man came to visit. The train isn’t terribly out of place either. The long wail of the whistle as it blows for the road crossing echoes across the prairie, just as it might have all those years earlier.

It was just a moment in time. Captured, on film. As much as I just watched it all pass by then, I look at it now and wish I could step back to it now.

A visit today to the same spot? No train, although the rails are there, largely undisturbed by the passage of the years. The train sits nearby, waiting for a call that will never come. Some of the people who made the image possible are gone now.

But the spot remains. Much as it always has, with the passing  years. Silent and lonesome, without man.

Still, what I would give to be there again, for just that moment.