One sees the land differently
passing through, compared to living upon it. Our trip over the weekend to Columbus, Ohio, is evidence to me of that. The roll and tug of farmland was generic, not particularized at all the way the eight miles between here and Ripon are special for me, as is a section of Iowa farmland I have lived on.
You cannot possibly imagine they will be the same - the land passing by in a rolling wash, compared to land you have lived upon. Yet by any objective standard there is little difference. It is not a matter of differences in the land; it is the differences the land makes in us.
It is a cold, blue sky, rosy-horizon kind of morning. I am glad to be home, glad to be here.
It is a snow-crunch, finger-thump kind of cold. A hard frost on things. The bite of the morning in the air. A long lay of cold light on the village. The flag at the cemetery flutters absent-mindedly. The shadows of trees are like flames of darkness; the sear of blue cold fans them.
The plow banks along the west side of Highway E are higher today than they were last Thursday, chunked with blocks of snow. The world keeps remaking itself.
Near the south edge of Ripon, three bird houses hang from branches of a tree, mute. Yet they are testament of a promise. The promise is: birds shall return to fill them.
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