Shadows On The Grass

Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.

Emily Dickinson, Presentiment Is That Long Shadow On The Lawn

It is finally Summer at the farm.  The rains have fallen away as they do this time each year and the outside temperature has risen to a sustainably summerish level.  The weather predictions indicate that this pattern will hold for the foreseeable future.

Ours is a funny sort of farm.  It holds many animals, but none that we feed or nurture (except those that live indoors with us) for they are wild.  They tolerate us just as we tolerate them, for we share this land.  While humanity has granted me title to this farm, our presence is as transitory as theirs and none of us is truly the land’s master.  We interact in funny ways: the rabbits shy away from my headlights when I leave for work in the early morning hours, running frantically to and fro to avoid something that has no intention of seeking them out; the swallows dip and soar for insects in front of the tractor as I mow; the deer eat Helen’s roses whenever they can, with one eye firmly fixed on our front door for her inevitable exit foray to chase them away; the occasional coyote looks longingly toward the house from a football field length, knowing that there are tasty cats inside.

We don’t farm as such, but we do grow acres of grass that we lovingly tend. The grass shares the farm with the small forest on the back of our property and the even smaller marsh in the front corner. We have a small ecosystem of the type of life which is indigenous to Humptulips County: firs, pines and deciduous trees of several varieties; rabbits, coyotes, raccoons, frogs, opossums, snakes, deer, the occasional elk, and insects galore; honeysuckle, roses, rhododendrons, azaleas, snowdrops, trillium, crocuses, and annuals of every kind imported to the land by Helen; cats, love birds and two humans; and grass everywhere.

But still I think of our home as a farm.  We have had goats and a horse.  Our neighbors once raised alpaca in our pasture.  In the next few weeks another neighbor will use our barn and pasture to stable their horses while the construction crew lays a new gas pipeline through their pastures.  When I retire, I dream that might eventually raise chickens or goats.  The possibilities are endless in dreams, and only time will prove whether I have the grit, energy and inspiration to do so or not.

But whatever else we don’t do in the way of farming, we do raise and nurture our grass.  Our fields are our defining glory.  Some homes are graced with an extensive view, and some wit a domestic yard or garden.  We are graced with open fields, green most of the year and sere and dun in the late Summer to come.  Our fields give our home its presence and set it apart.

The fields are green now and recently closely mown.  And as we came back from dinner out last evening, I noticed my favorite annual tradition has returned: the ever-lengthening evening shadows with which we share the twilight hours.

These shadows are, of course, here year-round, but there is something promising in the Summer shadows that isn’t present at other times of the year.  Summer shadows are full of a promise of tomorrow while reminding us of the past, for they are sempiternally mystic as to meaning.  They hold much meaning, meaning of the kind that needs to be carefully considered from the vantage point of a wooden rocker on a covered porch, warm tea held carefully in your lap.  And the meaning they imparted to me last night may well not be the meaning they will impart tonight, for the only focus in this mix is a single wooden rocker nestled on our front porch, and all the shadows – and even the heavens – revolve around that rocker as the shadows offer their meanings through dream.

This is not to suggest that the rocker or, indeed, our farm is a pre-Copernican center of the known universe; it is simply to suggest that, for me, our farm is the source of dreams that possess substance and reality. From here, I can imagine and if I can imagine, I can act. And I dream best with the aid of shadows that lengthen in the twilight as they knit themselves into night.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Stephen EllisSome Rights Reserved