Blue sky above,
sun to the east, clouds to the west. Autumn ahead; summer chugs into the station and will leave us there. Our days are a poisonous joy - we keep living them, they keep moving us towards death. Nothing is as easy as giving up - that's not the middlewestern way. We'd rather struggle, even knowing it's hopeless.
Perhaps that is what has been lost in the "new" world - since 1970 - the commitment, the effort to endure, slog it out, do whatever is necessary. Hey, that's not cost efficient. Where's the payback in that, some ask. For others, committed old-timers, they cannot see that they have a choice; they didn't know you could ask that question.
Mourning doves in the driveway, their quick flight a surprise of wings in front of me. Only modest dew on the windshield of the car. An immodest sun shining on everything.
The flag at the cemetery - not much wind in it, barely makes a listless flap. Farther north, a sparrow hawk. Then the field of alfalfa cut to dry. Beans and corn and other greennesses darken as the sun finds a cloud in the eastern sky.
Just south of Five Corners, a sandhill crane heads southeast. It knows where it's going; it's taking its time; it's got an all-day-slow flap of wing.
A field of beans, the south edge of Ripon, the light, the leaves shining like blossoms white and fat, and languid with sin.
Lovely entry. I think I know this country.
Posted by: Greg Rappleye | August 21, 2007 at 07:37 AM