Oak and Granite

The sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young... Psalm 84:3

Ruach, the barn swallow

Call to the clouds, search the shadows, who can find a better altar in the world than the eaves we call home? Had you spoken my language, I would have told you more clearly.

I swept by you there, on your perch, that rusty throne between the giant wheels. You were helping your father gather in the hay. He stared down the rows between his own pair of wheels, the forward wheels bent inward beneath the engine, a smaller wheel within his hands. As he turned, you pushed down on the hay rake’s lever, causing her spindly fingers to drop their cresting wave of felled grass and purple clover gone to seed. Back through the field for another pass, you would pull up with all your might and the long iron arches would once again drag through the sweet timothy.

You noticed me there, dipping and weaving over the field, defying your metal cause and effect with effortless glides. I spoke to you in semaphore of cobalt feathers and linen breast:

The storm will gather, the ground will shake, the fire will fall; all will be pentecost.

Jeshurun, the fieldmouse

My tail bears repeating. It is longer than my body, which seems strange, since one’s body normally includes one’s entire self. But not me. I am so slight and my tail so long that it nearly bears classification under a separate genus and species. Just looking at it makes my large eyes grow bigger. My ears were once smaller as well, but listening to my tail drag behind me has perked them up in roundy cusps of gray-pink opacity.

I suppose you are here for the corn; the yellow-gold, the silver-queen, the perfectly mixed cobs, such a harvest this year that the ingathering has gone on for days. All my family has been helping, of course, as we do each year. Gleaning what falls from the wagon, bringing every stray nugget up through the shafts into the granary.

You startled me there, in the golden light, swinging from the rafters with the neighbor girl. Climbing higher and higher into the mountains of hay, the heft of braided yellow hemp in your youngish hands, reaching to pull yourself up and lock your sneakered feet around a giant knot, all in a motion swinging out into the air and dropping into the impossible eternity of hay, a soft thud on the planks the only symptom of gravity. And the laughter, shooting up like sparks.

My family would scatter then, but I took my time. I wanted to watch, again and again. To see you swing out and fall and get back up. I guess some things are even better than corn.

Wilma, the snapper

My family has lurked here for aeons. Ages. Don’t talk to me about roads and fences, projects and progress. Life, real life is all turtles, spring water and wonderful mud. The first time I noticed anything about the Oak and Granite was when I went to the ancient nesting grounds and couldn’t get to the gravelly ground to lay my eggs. It was hard enough to meet someone around here, what with the new houses and dreadful cars.

Yes, those are the cute little tadpoles, growing their cute little tails. Watch ‘em grow; take ‘em home in a jar. Just don’t step any closer, unless you want to lose a toe.

Scout, the Quarter horse

Back from another trail ride. Still hesitant about stepping over those fallen trees. Just can’t seem to get over that fear. Sunday, that fearless rascal, she stands four of five hands shorter than me, but makes up for it in attitude and agility. You won’t see her stopping for a log, or pausing over a gap between stream banks. But you wouldn’t ride her, would you? Not after losing your tooth when she got spooked by that motorcycle.

Maybe when you’re a little older, your brothers will let you try riding me again, when your legs get a little longer and you can finally reach the stirrups. Don’t worry, I won’t drag you through the pasture like Sunday did to your brother when his foot got twisted up on the dismount. Such behavior! I really don’t know why they keep her around.

Your older brother brought home that little Shetland. She would be a good size for you to ride, but she bites. I’m glad we have three stables, so I don’t have to share with a biter. Bad enough to hear the constant noise of the neighboring bovines, chewing and swallowing and then up it goes and they’re chewing again. Is it so bad to be afraid of fallen trees?

The white-faced Herefords Trio

Venn kommt die English, vee essen sehr goooht. Aber vee hat Angst mit das Fenz vit alle schnap und schting -- das Fenz elektrik!

Unter der Stall, der ist eine Licht -- also elektrik! Nicht goooht.

Ein Kabel von see English. See English und der Elektrik! Nicht goooht, night goooht.

Cleo, the Basset Hound

If people would listen to me, I would tell them what my mother told me: “A wise old owl lived in an oak, the more she heard, the less she spoke; the less she spoke, the more she heard, why can’t we be like that old bird?”

Pay attention if you want the tastiest tidbits. Two long ears, no barking, that’s my motto.

I’m telling you. I’ve seen it with my own sad eyes: the last of the summer corn has been picked; the last cutting of hay has been brought in from the fields. It won’t be long before the storms start rolling in.

Our days are numbered, that is for certain. Too many good things piling up, one atop the other. Time for a crash.

I’m staying low to the ground.

The Bank Barn

She stands as the great-grandmother of the farm. Wide plank oak, vertical slats, faded red. The wood runs above the bank in the back, supported by massive crossbeams.

This is Maryland mill country, high and away from where the rivers met, a natural spring bubbling up in the pasture not fifty yards from the open side of the granite foundation. Where the stables face the east, the rogation temple rises three storeys to the sky, swallows streaming to and from the eaves each evening. These nests have yielded up their harvest so tiny flyers can learn the lessons of light and air. In the setting sun, an endless circling trisagion weaves glory from field and sky over the face of the spring-fed pond. Holy! Holy! Holy!

+ + +

John, the youngest

The days had begun to grow shorter, but the summer sunsets grew brighter as the humid days of July rolled into the hurricane season, with its unsettled weather patterns. Storm fronts marched across the sky above the old barn, varnishing the sun, staining the atmosphere unnatural hues of indigo. In stormy evenings, the wind became an untamed animal on the farm, driving all of the others mad with a smell of dust and the taste of iron.

I watched from the window as lightning arcing from cloud to cloud punctuated the roiling sky. I stepped onto the front porch to take in the scene, lightning flashing from the fields on my left to where the lawn fell past an aging beech tree, marking the border with the pasture fence. The horses were out, running circles, pawing the ground as thunder split the air like a whip. Sunday lunged, thrusting her head to the ground. The earth shook.

The clouds opened and rain poured down so hard that there was no telling earth from sky. All the air was water, dark white silver, an instant flood. Five minutes, ten, twenty or more, then suddenly the curtain parted and the world was clear, cleansed from the high blue to our bright green pasture. It was the golden hour when the sun shines all through the atmosphere. In this hour after the storm, the fading circle rolled inside the wide west doors behind the barn and went to sleep on the hay, exhaling beams of light through the planks of oak. It was night.

But the cows were still congregating knee-deep in puddles, the horses nervously whinnying to each other. Where was Cleo? Why was there a light on in the stables?

Pentecost, the fire

Where we start and how, when I begin and then beget with endless begats, all of this becomes the story of the becoming. No one can say why plural flames or a single spark will set a blaze apart from divided fires. On this night, in this place, the burning barn became an altar to behold. Grain offerings, tender timothy grass, golden green gobbled up in white-orange brighter than any summer sun. Consumed. Then the oak, now became rising towers of flame the darkness could not comprehend. How quickly the wet tin buckled and bent, hissing, folding, searing and dropping like leaves in autumn.

Underneath it all, under the forest of aged oak, under the offerings of grain, our granite altar. Blocks of grey, grisled with white, mortar flaked and burnt, bearing up the weight of all the loss. Beams fell against them, dislodging the smaller stones, then foundation shifted. Above the roar and chaos, the sound of sirens came screaming, sending fountains of water down through the starry night. One hour, two, still I ran and raced and scorched the earth.

I caught up all I could find with my deathly light and sent all living creatures flying, running into darkness. Only the people stood, faces flickering in the flames, watching, waiting for the end. Why of all God’s creatures do these ones stand staring into me?

Cleo, the Basset Hound

What did I tell you? The farm was not a good place for a dog, and now you are taking me back. The river carried me to Main Street, to that row of white porches and people giving me treats, but I will always cherish the memory. More than ever, my legs look like yesterday’s stretched out gym socks, but my belly has dried out and I am slowly overcoming the trauma of the flood.

What are the chances that you found me? Good luck, bad luck, who knows?

Put me down gently now. You know how hard it is for me to jump out of this truck….Does anyone listen to me?

What in the world happened to the old barn? There’s nothing left but a pile of blackened stones!

Louisa, my dear heifer, where are you going? Where is Scout? What happened to Sunday?

Vee all are moooving, dear Cleo. Moooving avay. No more barn, no more farm, no more Place for us here.

But I didn’t get to say good-bye. Lucky to be alive I suppose, aren’t we? I still smell something here that isn’t cow patties or charcoal. Jeshurun, what are you doing out in the open pasture? And your little ones. And your parents and their parents. Where will you all go?

We have cousins in the old farmhouse, Curse the Cats. This has always been the story of my people. Paradise found and then lost again. Such a harvest! What a winter it might have been!

You are welcome in my dog house anytime. Goodness knows, I never use it.

Cleo, my friend. How to tell you this? You have fleas. And a snake hiding in the corner. Life goes on. We have our memories of granite and oak.

Ruach, the barn swallow

What is a barn swallow without a barn? Homeless, or free?

I could see the fire coming, but what then, what now?

Come, my children and we will see what tomorrow brings.