Home by Beth Powning

Author:Beth Powning
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
Published: 2014-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

Of Contour and Hollow

Fields are square, and marked by posts and fences. They are bits of the planet brought to heel, remnants of vanquished forests. Yet within their human geometry, life cycles as complex and remote as the stars follow their course, and patterns more delicate than any human imagining turn, and tremble: the eyes of a butterfly, the iridescent scales of a million grasshoppers’ wings.

Fields represent truce, an accommodation of impulses. Perhaps it is thus that they attract us, and then make us feel insignificant. I quickly grew to love the fields. When I walked into them, early on a summer morning, and then turned and looked back at the farm, it was as if I were looking out the window of an airplane at a toy world. The farm fell away, became small and insubstantial; other people, still sleeping or making breakfast, had nothing to do with this world of wildflowers, pink clouds dappling a cool sky, sun trembling in dew, and the waking calls of birds.

The fields beckoned to me, always. Whenever I rested on my shovel, or set down my hammer, I saw the bright swells of waving grass, imperturbably marking the summer’s rhythm. The whish of wind, the chuckling of water, the single piercing cry of a bird came from another place, yet one that was close by. The fields and their hidden life followed their own course, whether or not I attended.

It wasn’t until the first week in August that Peter and I got around to making hay. By then, ferns in the hedgerows were shifting from green to tigery yellow, and under the willows by the brook fireweed ran rampant. The timothy had flowered, the cigar-heads now soft with seed. Our neighbour nodded, watching our preparations, his eyes lightening with approval and relief. Late, yes, but still some good in it.

A rusty red Massey-Harris tractor came with the farm. One morning, as soon as the dew was dry on the grass, Peter began mowing. The cutter bar clattered, its knife blades clicking. It dropped to the ground and was lost under the tall grass. Then the tractor went forward, and the grass trembled and fell backward in silky green swathes all up the hill, and around and around. The tossing tapestry fell, and fell, rectangle within rectangle, until the last waving strip tumbled down, and then all the diverse criss-cross of stems lay neat and culled, arranged and still.

The next day, after the hay had been raked, I walked along the swathes of freshly cut grass, tossing the sweet-smelling tangle with a hay fork. All around me the crickets sang freely, as if the tall grass had muffled their song and they celebrated its absence. Swallows dove and wheeled, feasting on hapless insects. I watched the tractor crawl forward and the baler lick up the swathes. Green cubes dropped, bounced, until the whole field was studded with square packages. Friends were there, that afternoon, and we ranged across the field, standing with hands gripping the hairy binder twine, waiting to sling our bale onto the truck or the hay wagon.

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