jamesdickey:

James Dickey would have been 90 years old today. In these photographs he was 19.

Some years after my father died in 1997, I was at a loss how to remember him. What was the image I wanted — that I needed — to hold onto? The memories of his face and his physique had turned, through age and grief, to blurs and shadows. But as I was looking at a family album kept by my grandmother I came across these snapshots from 1942 at Sea Island, Georgia, and I realized these were precisely what I’d craved. Of course I never knew this boy, but I knew that all of my father’s life, this was the image that he held in his head of himself. You see it again and again in his poetry, from “The Bee” to “Looking for the Buckhead Boys,” and in his dream of what he called “the happy swimming pool,” which is how he thought of heaven. And because these Apollonian images were so dear to my father, I decided to embrace them, too. They are now, not my memories, but my idea of him, and in my heart I need no other.

== Christopher Dickey

(via christopherdickey)

1. olittledrops likes this
2. cheechychonga likes this
3. morfeus149 likes this
4. littlecind likes this
5. adsp likes this
6. waysiancat likes this
7. xxtripleaxe-l reblogged this from christopherdickey
8. gareebi likes this
9. 2minichinz likes this
10. hidandelion likes this
11. catherineeryan likes this
12. trinatc likes this
13. timecubed reblogged this from newsweek
14. emilymlarson likes this
15. tkeady likes this
16. eucher likes this
17. syqproductions reblogged this from jamesdickey
18. lovenat likes this
19. notaluallen reblogged this from newsweek and added:

    The Heaven of AnimalsBy James L. Dickey Here they are. The soft eyes open. If they have lived in a wood It is a wood. If...

20. markkamary likes this
21. vorfreu-de likes this
22. pazcual likes this
23. artisticality-xx likes this
24. elsiemprejoven likes this
25. seashelllz likes this
26. giddygrenadine likes this
27. raachhhbabiee likes this
28. qwerkkk likes this
29. yolo-swag69 likes this
30. sandyfitzgeraldwriter reblogged this from christopherdickey and added:

    These are lovely images. Time is far too fleeting. We all see ourselves as our youngest, strongest selves. Thank you for...

31. golden-fleece likes this
32. golden-nonsense likes this
33. roundabend reblogged this from newsweek
34. selfentangled likes this
35. sartorialscholar likes this
36. rubyleerose likes this
37. originalface likes this
38. pencilsniffer likes this
39. seeyouloveyoubeyou likes this
40. gatsbyandvogue reblogged this from newsweek
41. quickhits likes this
42. franne-ank likes this
43. easygameeasylife likes this
44. mtthw-flty likes this
45. mnot likes this
46. stayweird-kittyyss likes this
47. ampersand-c reblogged this from newsweek and added:

    As I was riding home on the bus from class yesterday a man in his fifties/sixties sat next to me and for a fleeting...

48. tinytouch likes this
49. champagne-and-icecream likes this
50. palmercollection reblogged this from newsweek
51. Show more notesLoading...