Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Enamored of Space and Trees



I am as enamored of space as I am of trees—almost!

I realize that there are needs, opportunities and/or preferences as to living in the  city or in the country.  I was born in a rural area in southwestern Minnesota.  Imagine, if you will, the 1950s, before agri-business became ‘law of the land.’ There were endless open spaces on small farms, one after the other, patterned with a variety of growing things and animals, and only interspersed by tree-lined, long driveways and the protective grove around a home, buildings, and yards that also seemed too big for small kids sent out to do the chores.

Now look at the sea of blue-blossoming flax fields, moving with the breezes, or the long rows of beans, clean and straight, that invite your eyes to follow almost as far as the horizon.  Smell the air—sometimes affected by  manure, but not always—the smell of threshed grain or, even, watch the shockers as they build a sturdy cone of five, or perhaps six, bundles of wheat, skillfully placed so as to resist summer rains.  Listen to the meadowlarks or the mourning doves.

Can you see, smell, hear, imagine any of these happenings other than in the farmlands where SPACE is not just a commodity, but sheer gift, a luxury, a place to revel in, a space to roam in, where, like the proverbial buffalo, deer and antelope, one can almost taste peace ... or as Emily Dickinson would have it, a place where one could create a poem if there were only one clover and reverie ?

Are you enamored of space and trees, as well as I?  I hope so.


Renee Domeier, OSB

No comments:

Post a Comment