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‘WASH IN THE FIELD’/acrylic/gunther
August 19, 2019
By Arthur H. Gunther III
(also on Facebook)
Imagine all the conversations at the clothesline that women have had in urban/suburban/rural areas; count the dreams/thoughts of so many women hanging wash by themselves. Now you have more talk, more dreams/thought than clothes left to dry.
There is work in hanging wash, relieved for some today by clothes dryers, but there is escape, too, away from the indoor household routine, even in this routine.
Words shared over urban clotheslines tethered to a common pole, women pulling the day’s wash on squeaky pulleys from tenement windows; the solitary thought of a woman, or man, or child gathering a wind and cold-stiffened shirt from a line, clothespins reset one after another, all this: reaffirming existence itself.
The writer is a retired newspaperman. ahgunther@yahoo.com, Facebook Messenger.