The wind gives the field a face, and the trees give the wind a voice.
In the yard, the walnut trees also give the wind a beat -- nuts dropping in their inky husks onto the calcinated earth so often it sometimes sounds like corn popping.
Ankle turners, these. Quick to blacken and soften. Alive, when we shovel them into the wheelbarrow, with the small, writhing maggots of the walnut husk fly. But this is no biology lesson. Here we concern ourselves less with nomenclature and more with universal truths. Colon, close parenthesis.
We stop by the pignut hickory that marks one mile from the house.
The squirrels have been busy.
So have the men.
As Thoreau said: It's not enough to be busy; but what are we busy about?
copyright 2010 J. O'Brien
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