Friday, May 4, 2007

to all of you regular readers out there

i'm working on some new stuff to post, but very little is at a stage i feel comfortable with sharing. it's mostly all in birthing stages, and what with my dividing my efforts between verse and prose, birthing i think takes a little longer: i don't concentrate for very long in one place. but i don't think that's a bad thing--it keeps things from getting stale--or at least, i hope it does.

but to satiate any dying thirsts, i have decided to post a little bit of what i can that it isn't totally embarrassing. and i might just keep doing this.


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The grass of the Iowan hills is worn to a dull green by the sun. In the rainy season it will achieve a dark lushness, but it is never comparable to the wetter regions of the United States. It is arguably beautiful, but it is dull. In April and May the storm clouds move over the waves of green land and bring rain, especially at night. And after, the sun shines on the clouds’ flanks, and the earth profits from the rain, and from it comes its green. And then it might rain again after the day begins to cool, and then again the sun will shine against the clouds, turning them pink and orange and red, and as it sets they will turn blue, and then gray with the hills, and then blend with the sky unless the moon offers some distinction.

In this way the years passed, in the rainy seasons, with the summer, and the long shabby fall, and the winter, in between, until the people forgot. And the land didn’t change, except for a gradual leveling through increased farming and development, and through the more gradual fated erosion of the loess. The years passed, and the hills began to grow short, crouching into old age, until the people forgot. And then they forgot who they were, and where they came from. And then they were nothing. And then maybe they were something new, but they didn’t know it, and they had no pride.


1 comment:

Julie said...

Hey, I'll put "Grizzly Man" in your grad student box tomorrow afternoon, okay? You simply must see it, and maybe it could be a trade for the healthy dose of Steinbeck... :-)