place is nice. real nice. here the hills mount and the flat top with the garden out back, every waking light through the upper windows like morning hellos when wildflowers meet the sky that steady sky and the lay a da land to greet you. soft and steady with all its deep colours its outburst of growth, and there’s a chirpin’ in the air with many cloud movements. it can carry you – the tune of life surrounds, the drop of the valley to the next rise up ahead and the winds hit heavy as they flush through the leaf spaces. this land takes the loneliness away. and there’s the water’s edge and you can listen to the bullfrogs and bulrushes catch the movements in the air, a different passing each day to lift up the sky.  place is awful nice he’d say – awful nice. mornings here rise up through the damp fields around. I don’t think anyone will come today. so it’s my empty moments to string together, stretched out like grass gripping the earth like sunshine splashed into colour like clouds casting moving shadow monsters on the fields like lighthouses on stormy shores saying hey, come on, you can make it, this way!

the august heat again. out among the meadow willows, and he’d ask us to thank the shade. patterns of the places we live, the sounds and colours. the underside of clouds burnt red by the rising hills that meet the sinking sun. things keep growing. gripping the earth. hugging it close. like smoke and sway that flows from the ground that grew it and the sun that bathed it. blue hours of the months and years and peelings cores seeds to the compost, forgotten fruits, citrus circus of the mind. always the cycles. and each space each movement and migration a story to listen to.

the pines and borderline up by the next rise ahead and the barking and howling of the city too far to hear. me and the moon smiling our crazed crescent smiles. hEy, hOW aRe YoU ? No really, how are you? there's stars shooting past and on and on they go to places not here... he'd tell of how life found its place and dug in and grew slow and steady and how the story's continued ever since wiith them crickets in the summer grass and me out back by the flattop again. them thunderclouds blowing in. smoke and raindrops and the fat of the land he’d reckon. fat of the land. spilling out to meet the chirpin’ and cricketing. roll another and play it soft man. plenty for everyone. the oil lamp licking the dark. a meal cooks. simmers slowly on the stove.  

place is nice, real nice he'd say. with evening pouring its sound through the windows. I’m the only one here, and over the valley rise someone might be thinking the same. wonder what his name is. slow and steady the days and harvest is soon. he’d be there to give a hand. and when the day’s work is done, that constant feelin’ of da land, a breeze come up on you from the rise behind with the warm sun on its back, and all them wheat fields getin’ threshed for loafs of love. another empty bottle in his hand. send me back again, he’d say, send me back for more. we'd go floating along the water’s edge with all the buzzing and chirpin’, that’s what he’d love to do. then laying down in the august fields among the clover and timothy. know where home was again.

sweet peas and rhubarb the first to come and last to go. and always the timothy and blue, alfalfa and clover to keep me company, and them steers and calves and heifers muchin’ off da land. fat of the land alright. fat a da land he’d say… I wish he’d come surprise me. down here on the farm after the wheat and rye been threshed. and the last cigarette rolled with the ice cube tray refilled, another day done gone for the memory to hold. By and by with the land that made him, some born with fire and it warms the ones around them. we all could use a little heat, he’d reckon. lay those hands bare and get a feel for da land.  get to know what we’re standing on before we’s take a seat. be like all them barn animals in the straw. he’d understand. it was him that grew it.  

folks around here are like the land, nice and steady. real fine folks. lend a hand and give you their share when time ain't makin any favours. be like them big boulders sittin’ in the fields. slow and steady with the glaciers that placed them. and sometimes you just wish it was you. come to realize what’s around you in the sound and light, all the spaces unheard and unrushed. wonder if the cricket can hear it’s own song, if the apple knows its own blush, if the grass can feel the tickle of its own tips. wonder why more people ain’t wondering. crickets keep on singing regardless. all for their ladies, knowing it’s best to be with the ones you love. that way time’s on your side.

like all nights past they begin out back by the bend with the cricketing and chirpin’ the cloud movements and heifers and hay. lay a da land he’d say.  colours that blend blue at this hour, best time to rest the feet from the day’s work in the fields. all the combinations that keep her steady. slow and steady.  holdin’ her in place with the crickets and clover. lamp light burning the darkness again, throwing its glow soft and steady. another moth’s delight, a celebration in their swaying and swooping and swerving. as unsure as the wind movements above our heads, as wonderful. 

it's a long way home if you’re lost. trick is being found he’d liken to say. and I’m here on this land where the hills rise to meet the sky and it's always passing but coming, farmers feeding the world for their two bits and when they come round the bend out back by the cottonwoods speakin’ soft and sure in the shade, you know then that it’s the land that shapes us. the things we do to it.  the things we want from it. out there by the reach, sweet peas and rye.

one thing he'd tell us, time’s not worth getting lonely over. so he’d lay it down.  take the time he’d say, take it to grow the things you want. ain’t no knowing when the rains are gonna stop. it always ends up back at the land, the timothy and clover. that’s where the spirit lays, wrapped up in alfalfa, like them heifers in the grass, the bulrushes at the water’s edge, the wind and wheat.  so on it goes soft to the sound of the birds and bugs up where the hills meet in smells, the sweeping sky falling on the land, greeting it with the early morning colours of orange and apple. laying there longing for love and ya kinda get a feel of the land between the rises. hell if only he'd ask, I’d give him a helping hand. so much to love in the places that feed us. mornings to evenings and garden vegetables to suppers. a wonder alright. this land wondering aloud with its singing and chirping, its movements in light and shade, constant hummin of the fields.  four months long the crickets asking to be loved. I shout to them I do!

laying down again to rest in the late august grass with the loneliness gone away, he’d say to feel it with your hands. with your eyes and ears. to feel its warmth.  feel the days wrapped up like bales stacked high in the barn. ain’t nothing better than that feelin. on this big blue ball of a home. gotta treat it like you would your own, treat it like it were your own – nothin’ more important he’d say, slow and steady.