I look down and my hand is not where I thought it was. I slap it with the other hand but it wont move. Two toy tractors sit on the windowsill, engines running. A man works under the hood of one while the other sends up blue exhaust.
One winter day I followed the wind to the top of the ridge where the woman had passed out of view. On the other side was a barbed wire fence strung with thousands of tumbleweeds, bumping and jostling, struggling to cross over into the next pasture, much like salmon hurdling a waterfall. The few that broke free rushed out into the open pasture and somersaulted and frolicked along, carefree and oblivious, tossing off bits of leaf and stem, until they were snared by the next fenceline a quarter mile away. Like holiday shoppers, they fought and clawed, rolling over each other, a suffocating mass. A few broke free from the line and charged with glee across the freeway only to be crushed by the wheels of tractor-trailer trucks. In the spring the thistles that remain trapped along the fencelines are set afire by ranchers.
There is a rancher out in that field now, setting fires. He has been doing this ever since I could remember. He smiles as the flames crack and arc across the thatch of thistles, blue smoke rising like a cobra. He has burned miles of fenceline by now and he has many miles to go. In the distance, through the haze, he can make out the grassy hill to the north of the ranch. He squints and sees the form of a woman, running across the crest of the hill, toward the fires he set in the north pasture. Flames can be seen above the hilltop, consuming ash and junipers. She passes out of view. He laughs, knowing that he will never see her again.
I feel a jolt again - what was I thinking?
One winter day I followed the wind to the top of the ridge where the woman had passed out of view. On the other side was a barbed wire fence strung with thousands of tumbleweeds, bumping and jostling, struggling to cross over into the next pasture, much like salmon hurdling a waterfall. The few that broke free rushed out into the open pasture and somersaulted and frolicked along, carefree and oblivious, tossing off bits of leaf and stem, until they were snared by the next fenceline a quarter mile away. Like holiday shoppers, they fought and clawed, rolling over each other, a suffocating mass. A few broke free from the line and charged with glee across the freeway only to be crushed by the wheels of tractor-trailer trucks. In the spring the thistles that remain trapped along the fencelines are set afire by ranchers.There is a rancher out in that field now, setting fires. He has been doing this ever since I could remember. He smiles as the flames crack and arc across the thatch of thistles, blue smoke rising like a cobra. He has burned miles of fenceline by now and he has many miles to go. In the distance, through the haze, he can make out the grassy hill to the north of the ranch. He squints and sees the form of a woman, running across the crest of the hill, toward the fires he set in the north pasture. Flames can be seen above the hilltop, consuming ash and junipers. She passes out of view. He laughs, knowing that he will never see her again.
I feel a jolt again - what was I thinking?
3 comments:
What we are looking at here is so obvious and concrete that it escapes our attention. In a stream of red herring I always watch the silver one. In a neutral facial expression I perceive hostility. In fact, naturally occurring faces appear everywhere. In an alignment of leaves and shadow. a stump or outcropping, when hunting and fishing random patterns form into prey. In an ambiguous landscape of earth and sky out west is the totemic presence of the rancher, the fences, and the rancher's daughter. These are not captured by the physical reality of an individual rancher, his fences, or his daughter anymore than the face in the leaves and shadow upon closer inspection. Nor can it be defined with a photograph or a scientific name. Defying description or interpretation we fuss over a painting of a prairie sun or moon until time and material demands we settle on one representation alone as the final product. We try to copy the seemingly random and simple designs we see. Like ranchers we take ownership and manage the fences with fire and other forces of nature or natural processes. We articulate the experience with words. We summon the organic and inorganic synthesizing an attempt to share our rich experience. In the end, the materials, the time, the language all fails to satisfy our desire to share the experience; succumbing to the physical limits of the medium. We try to content ourselves that one day, some how, some way the depths of another will be moved and inspired in the same way. Science is not only the search for truth but the acquisition of it so that duplication of the formula reproduces the results. It is elusive. What is a man but a characterization of a spectrum of potential selves at any given moment in time? A perceived stereotype collected from the mannerisms of a thousand men. His true nature is only driven out and manifested by his choice of selfish or selfless roles. He is raw material in the crucible and time is the fire in which he burns. Impurities threaten to consume all that he is so that he emerges with no redeeming value but to be returned to the earth as slag. What is the mundane dirt, water, and air but recycled materials that have rendered no refined permanent solution or meaning to life that it supports? The purpose of life is to question it's own existence; to ask Why? and survive long enough to receive the reply, only to discover the questions multiply exponentially until arriving back from where they began. And knowing the place for the first time.
Futility is always missing the mark; envisioning the target, aiming, and firing. Disappointment, disillusionment, dissatisfaction, and embarrassment is the result. There is no closure or completion. Indeed, we die asking why we have ever lived.
The woman is obviously a metaphor for a simile that can only be compared to itself. It's as plain as the face under your nose.
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