THE HIDDEN TRACK

The following passages are dedicated to Leopold, to the vernacular, to certain evil women (you know who you are), to certain wonderful people(they know who they are), to soft afternoons and quiet Sunday evenings, to Fall and seeing your breath for the first time since Spring, and to Isabelle Ya Feng ... a soul slipped by like two ships passing in the still, moonlit sea.
-- Abraham Ahmed, the Surfing Beatnik



If I Never Bought a Tractor...

I made the small deck from rough-sawed lumber I sourced from the mill in town; I made the tabletop from a disc I cut from the base of a large oak; I made the chair, though no more than a melon crate with a back nailed to it, but I made it! Hell, I even churned the honey-butter that I spread on a beautiful, grainy breakfast bread I purchased from a farm's roadside stand a few miles up the road.

It's these uncomplicated bits of tangibility that I appreciate at the moment, along, indeed, with the manufactured: the knife on the edge of the plate, the collected works of Emerson next to it, and the blue tin coffee cup in my hands with its warm South American contents. Many live at-want for a simple meal.

...Ah, time-consuming introspection and reverie.

When, today, there is a pile of field waste to burn, a baler to repair, a few rows of potatoes to get tucked in, and a pump in the pump house to convince to start pumping again!

An old, half-blind cat glides his orange body against the leg of my blue jeans. He neither doubts nor protests, just chooses to tarry and accept the morning's humid sun through his closed eyelids.

Had I become a banker like her father, things would've been different. Had I bought a boat instead of a tractor, I'd still know the taste of her lips. Had I sacrificed the depths of who I am,  she never would've left me for the clean-cut boy back home.

Well, this ole' crate is comfortable, so why not have just one more cup of coffee; then, I'll start on that stubborn ole' pump!

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