Another in the occasional series of "The Rural Life" short essays by Verlyn Klinkenborg from the New York Times' editorial page (November 30, 2010). That we could all write as evocatively as he...
I pull into the farm from the city. It is early in the evening but well after nightfall, and the moon hangs over the hills like a hypnotist's watch. I drop a few things in the house and then wander out to check on the animals.
I used to take a flashlight when I was new to this place. I no longer do. My eyes adjust slowly, but part of the pleasure of walking out in the night is watching the flat opacity resolve into the three dimensions of this farm. All the nocturnal creatures are out and about--somewhere--and I will never be one of them. Even the horses are more nocturnal than I am. They live in natural light year-round, and by the time I get home they're a couple of hours into watching the night.
In summer, you can pretend the night is translucent and that even the Milky Way is emanating warmth. By late November, those illusions are past. The sun feels benevolent, but when it vanishes, after 4 p.m., the rising darkness becomes continuous with the deepest, coldest reaches of space.The chickens pretend not to notice when I look in. The horses stand impassive in their pasture, though if I opened the gate and walked in, they would drift over to share their heat. I have no idea where the barn cat is, but he is so black that he would stand out in a night like this. I complete my rounds and still my eyes haven't opened fully to the night.
I light a fire in the wood stove and settle in to read in the kitchen. Light spills onto the deck, and I see a movement. It's an opossum, come up to investigate the cat-food dish. It walks up to the glass door and peers in, surely blinded by so much brightness. Perhaps this is the one I met--to both our surprise--on the ladder to the hayloft a few months ago. Now it stands in the light looking hopelessly disorganized, as opossums do, and then it wanders off into the darkness, where the seeing is much better.
4 comments:
Beautifully written. I was with you in the darkness and I saw everything. :-)
Love to you
Gail
peace......
I totally share your wish that we could all write as well as Vern! I'm surprised any one stays in the city after reading his writings about the rural life!
Carolyn H.
Nicely written indeed! It's always a pleasure to read something like this, where the words do as much as photos to draw images in the mind. Beautiful...
Gail, Carolyn, and Jason: I am really impressed by Verlyn's short essays. So, I Googled him to see if his works had been collected into a book and, among many other Google returns, found a commentary on a blog called Gawker.com entitled "Verlyn Klinkenborg: Still a menace." The author of the Gawker post did nothing to contain his complete and utter disdain for Klinkenborg, and there were dozens of comments on the post along the same lines: drivel, treacle, shallow, sickeningly romantic, etc. You get the picture. Now, I'm starting to wonder about my own reaction. Of course, everyone's entitled to an opinion, but there was a LOT of vitriol directed at these essays. Am I missing something?
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