Evidence

I don’t remember taking this photograph.

I could find this spot again without much trouble, but the day itself is gone.

Just gone.

I know it was summer. The green tells me that.

What I remember is probably what happened. The motion of it.

Pulling the tripod legs apart. Leveling the horizon. Previewing the exposure. Keeping the whites from blowing out. Holding detail in the blacks.

My hands know this the way they know how to tie a shoe.

I probably remember the sound of river rocks scraping under my boots and the cachunk of the shutter.

Thirty years I’ve been walking this river with a camera. A long time for me.

The evidence is right here in front of me.

I have no memory of it.