MOON OVER CORN RIVER

Sunday, September 30, 2012.  Abundant, ripe, golden beneath the rising moon, the river of corn stretches to the horizon and beyond.  It has feed mankind for millennia, and others before then.  It flows down, halting at the bank of green, pausing its rush over the field.  The moon seems so far away, beyond the trees, beyond the rise, beyond my ken, but within the boundaries of my thoughts.

SPRING DREAMS

April 8, 2012.  What can be better on a sunny spring day than a kite in the sky?  It soars, it swoops, it flutters and then it stays up, working its way in the wind.  There are no trees to gobble at it, no telephone poles and wires, just sky against which your kite paints a spot of bright color.

MIST OF MEMORY

April 1, 2012.   I baled hay on these fields, in the hot summer sun of July.  This land never looked so enticing to me, so inviting for further investigation.  It only ever looked like work.  The alfalfa and clover, as they grew, became ripe with the promise of long days sweating and burning, coolness only being found under the wagon, with a glass of Aunt Gert's cool aid and a square of cake.

SNO CONE

December 21. 2011.  A singular morning in December in the land where I was born.  The trees in the distance were enveloped in frost, glistening as the sun considered its rising.  No snow graced us or the land, but this stunning steel blue sky with the shimmering white was captivating.  What else to do, but look and wonder how long it could remain, because surely it had vanished as the day wore on.

SNOW MONOCHROME

February 12, 2011. Snow blankets the ground as far as you can see, and meets the sky but barely changes color, impacted only by the difference of sky and earth. There must be a gradual rise behind the figures moving against this backdrop, but maybe not, maybe it is a sheer cliff. I know what it is because I am familiar, and I understand the figures and playing snow softball. We are compelled to go outdoors and vigorously trammel the snow, expand ourselves against the elements, exert our right to be - here and now.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

December 26, 2009. The road to home, after a snowy night. Or the road looking back. No matter how I look, I know where I am, where I’ve been, where I’m going to, and to where I will return. This single road, freshly plowed, wide and white, has recorded countless steps of children on their way to school, like the grains of sand on a beach. My sister-in-law, who came from the northern woods, once remarked that this vast open sky could cause melancholy, by sheer dint of its scope. She might be right, and maybe that is what the settlers traveling over the prairie felt. How much warmer must it be to have trees overhead and sheltering. Alas, that was not to be in this fertile farm country, which was cleared to make way for farm after farm and small town after small town. But it is where I took my first steps and it is to where I am drawn from time to time, like a fish to its place of beginning.

Pods

September 19, 2009. Another morning walk and I came across these pods at the turn off to the J.B. Majerus family farm, currently farmed by my cousin Kathy, her husband Hank and their family. These pods are so spooky, like something otherworldly will burst forth from them, when we least expect it. They have an uneven casing, that gives an image of being spikey, and makes you shy away from touching it. At the same time, they are so wierd, that you can't help but be drawn to them.

Lamb on a Block

September 18, 2009. In the last several years I've started visiting the cemetaries where my ancestors are buried. I usually go with my mom and we water the urns that she and my sister have planted and placed. It has made me more attentive to displays of devotion to the creator and our attention to those that came before us and where their bodies now rest. Some of the inscriptions are heart breaking, others attest to a long life, with a strong family line.

Weavers

September 17, 2009. On my morning walk, along a country road near Bellechester, Minnesota, I spyed this - the ancient art of weaving. Beautiful, site specific and useful. Using only a beak, a bird is able to weave this incredible structure, supported by three weeds, and it resists the battering or wind, rain and the periodic gusts of passing of traffic. How it maintains is tenuous grasp is amazing to me.