“When your professional life involves pulling weeds, you have time to think & plan, according to the sky, the first flush of geese, the dropping leaves, the front blowing in, tonight. Laying on my side, on a hill, pushing my trowel into the soft earth beneath red tinged azaleas, I feel safe. The love of land or love from the land, is real. So is Duane. He’s thinking about the auction in Chester this weekend, the farm equipment, and what he might be out for by the end of it. He’s looking at the third cut on the upper fields, waxing on about feeding fifty cows for a week. Thirty cords of wood in the two sheds he says, & its time to stop, call it good. I pulled horse radish for a few hours, where somebody had tried to kill it but it wouldn’t die. The worst thing is watching a cold hardy plant push up against black plastic, practically re-invigorated by the attempt to eradicate it. You’d think we would have learned by now. That the future is irrepressible. It’s going to come, whether or not you’ve got your house in order. What you skimped on ... maybe your wedding vows, maybe your rent ... it will come back to haunt you. In the soft light of the bedroom at dawn where you lie with your heart on your sleeve, trying to hide, trying to feel, trying to be a good person after all is said and done, you could wake up or go back to sleep. Good god, I’m jaded. The huge invasive plants I gingerly offered to cut, fought back. Using a Japanese scythe, on Japanese Knotweed, towards the end, I sliced open my index finger. I had to lean into it & apply pressure, backfired a little, I guess. Or are these wounds just part of the play? In which one gets thrust forward to fight, while the other hangs back to enjoy the spoils of war? All for the likes of a monolithic weed. And yet ... I love you more, if you get my meaning. More than you are willing to take the time to notice. And so I endure what you can’t. The future, eh, few give a thought to it. They just want to look good now, & stay in step, do the right thing. That’s why I’m asking Duane to level the ground, with his tractor. To push the dirt, to make a place to sit, and view the world objectively. It took me all summer to get to this conclusion, but I’m glad I did. I know you’ll never see it, nor the third mowing, nor the evening light on the tree line. This is my land now, because of love, not yours. And I don’t even own it.”
