Walking

Had there been a time when order was simple periphery, we remembered it on this morning.

Because the ground was too stubborn to wake from a bottomless January freeze, the soil bit my shoes and Sadie's paws (though she didn't seem to mind). With the new snow dusting, there was no way to see those dirt trails that had been formed from years of feet racing toward the outer limits of farm. In this hour, before the snow could melt, walking would follow no trail. In this way, not even our eyes would suggest that they knew we had or had not walked the dirt months or years before.

But the other bits of landscape would remain familiar. We'd pull ourselves beyond the rows of christmas trees, the overturned tomato and squash soil, and the soybean fields persisting as themselves still if only by the wavering weight of themselves as sticks.

It was morning and the fields were bright. Everything was there: in contour. And what of the ground peeking through?

We walked, and walked, ran. So nice to be there with Sadie, whose presence easily helped me re-member my memories of walking along the dirt paths on hot summer days, picking and tending to grown and growing plants under a deep summer sun.