Learning to Breathe
To be rooted is perhaps the most
important and least recognized
need of the human soul.
-Simone Weil
For twenty-five years he has lived
on this place, his roots
becoming more deeply implanted
with each fence post he sets,
with each animal that is born,
with each that dies.
He’s walked the frozen ground
with heavy steps, searching
for a missing calf and ran
for the mere joy of running
across fields of alfalfa
billowing in the afternoon,
the sun warm on his back.
It’s been a harsh land at times—
three times the wind has ripped
the shingles from the west side of the roof;
he remembers that first year
when they told him the stream
out back never freezes over,
hauling water for cows
in heavy buckets and freezing hoses
when it did.
This is a land of letting go—
twenty-five times he’s watched hummingbirds,
prismatic explosions of light,
migrate in to punctuate his view,
congregating, bickering at the feeder,
and he’s watched them go as the years
wound down with fading colors.
Crying he held his oldest cow’s head,
his first calf born more than twenty years before,
and watched as the vet inserted the needle
into the artery in her neck—
the pink fluid pumped from the syringe
much paler than the two drops of blood
that appeared around the shiny steel
as her eyes slowly closed
and her breath, warm on his hand,
stopped.
The orchard is fertile from bones
of his dogs buried there,
grass roots and earthworms explore the pale
unfolding skeletons beneath the sod,
dandelions the only marker,
and a slight depression you wouldn’t notice
if you didn’t know it was there...
and there had been times when he wanted
nothing more than to join them.
Yet the ragged grace about this land,
this western land of sagebrush
and deceptive horizons,
brings him comfort,
like an old pair of gloves
that conforms to his hands.
This is a lonely land at times...
still there is a certain stark beauty
in its emptiness: a snowy field,
the silent solitude he finds just after
the sun drops below land’s edge,
a bare spot where his dog used to lie.
There is an ease
in the certainty of the seasons,
and he is learning
the next breath comes
only when he releases the one he's holding
To be rooted is perhaps the most
important and least recognized
need of the human soul.
-Simone Weil
For twenty-five years he has lived
on this place, his roots
becoming more deeply implanted
with each fence post he sets,
with each animal that is born,
with each that dies.
He’s walked the frozen ground
with heavy steps, searching
for a missing calf and ran
for the mere joy of running
across fields of alfalfa
billowing in the afternoon,
the sun warm on his back.
It’s been a harsh land at times—
three times the wind has ripped
the shingles from the west side of the roof;
he remembers that first year
when they told him the stream
out back never freezes over,
hauling water for cows
in heavy buckets and freezing hoses
when it did.
This is a land of letting go—
twenty-five times he’s watched hummingbirds,
prismatic explosions of light,
migrate in to punctuate his view,
congregating, bickering at the feeder,
and he’s watched them go as the years
wound down with fading colors.
Crying he held his oldest cow’s head,
his first calf born more than twenty years before,
and watched as the vet inserted the needle
into the artery in her neck—
the pink fluid pumped from the syringe
much paler than the two drops of blood
that appeared around the shiny steel
as her eyes slowly closed
and her breath, warm on his hand,
stopped.
The orchard is fertile from bones
of his dogs buried there,
grass roots and earthworms explore the pale
unfolding skeletons beneath the sod,
dandelions the only marker,
and a slight depression you wouldn’t notice
if you didn’t know it was there...
and there had been times when he wanted
nothing more than to join them.
Yet the ragged grace about this land,
this western land of sagebrush
and deceptive horizons,
brings him comfort,
like an old pair of gloves
that conforms to his hands.
This is a lonely land at times...
still there is a certain stark beauty
in its emptiness: a snowy field,
the silent solitude he finds just after
the sun drops below land’s edge,
a bare spot where his dog used to lie.
There is an ease
in the certainty of the seasons,
and he is learning
the next breath comes
only when he releases the one he's holding