Timothy O’Sullivan, Photographer
He could have stayed in the city,
photographed the cheese and oyster boys after the war,
opal-colored orphans or ladies of unfortunate standing,
back when tall buildings still believed in America,
back when concrete was still a thing of splendor.
Instead he went West to rehabilitate his grief.
Always the white sky.
Always the dark figures lost in an immense world
full of danger and disaster, starvation and storms
of mosquitoes thick enough to snuff out candles.
Provisions lost in a blazing sun that watched
constantly. Twice hit by shell fragments,
once by tuberculosis.
Dead at 42.
The fortunate thing about his camera
was its ability to stray—
to put things in that didn’t belong,
like footprints in the sand.
Here is the photographer and his party
exploring the great canyons of the West
while their clothes dry on the line.
Copyright Credit: John Spaulding, “Timothy O’Sullivan, Photographer” from The White Train. Copyright © 2004 by John Spaulding. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
Source: The White Train (Louisiana State University Press, 2004)