Six Years Ago

I finally went for a walk, around the corner and north of town, to look at the cornfield. My neighbor was hosting a birthday party for her granddaughter -- balloons, a few streamers. There were five or six kids at her house. They were lining up on her porch, taking turns trying to drop wooden clothespins into a mason jar. The music of children's shouts and laughter.

I got to the field and looked over the nearly golden sea. The sun was setting and it was getting cool. A half-ton truck came slowly around the corner and crept toward me. The driver's window was rolled down. He was a man in his 60s, a farmer. We nodded to each other.

"You see the news today?" he asked.

"Yes I did."

He put the truck in park, but left the motor idling. He was looking at the field, too.

"Quite the thing," he said. And it was.