From the Field

Oh these fields of green and gold with their old split rail fences, their hedgerows and their guardian trees. . . . There are bales of hay everywhere this week, bales round and square and oblong, bales large and small, sweet bales of Alfalfa, Clover, Rye, Oats, Wheatgrass and Timothy (Bluegrass). Cornfields are reaching for the clouds and Barley is poetry in motion.

The skies are different in haying time, clearer blue at sunrise and a deeper more intense blue in the evening. On my walks through the fields with Cassie, I measure the slow careful march of summer and the turning of the seasons by the length of the shadows falling from big round bales in the pastures. At dawn there are crows perched on the bales exchanging stories, and at twilight, there are legions of deer and wild turkeys grazing in the stubble fields around them. Light and shadow are doing their slow honeyed seasonal dance to an improvised choreography and their own fey tunes.

An urban acquaintance remarked recently that "when one has seen one bale of hay, one has seen them all". Not so, each is unique and has its own pattern and texture — each casts a fine artistic shadow which is all its very own.