It Was Nebraska

It Was Nebraska

via I-80
12/2011


White winter worms of bulky bales, for feeding bawling beeves.
Worms, plastic protected.
   
Sharp, stark black of angus against warm winter sun-glared gold of chopped corn stalks.

In a row, like circus elephants, the black cows parading away from the wind shelter of trees, a young calf four deep in the line with one more adult bringing up the rear.

Like pepper dotting the golden buttery top of a heap of potatoes, the black cattle are feeding in the short cropped stubble of corn fields.  Some clustered, others scattered, but all in close proximity in acres and acres of fields that singly, are as large as the 240 acre farm I called home.

Even the cedar trees are rusty, drab, brownish dark, camouflaged; almost, not quite, green.

At the edges of the fields are miles long lines of crowded trees, the trunks a bleached gray white and their branches, ever smaller and smaller near the tree tops, form clouds almost of mist-like frosty fog, until they pale and along with wisps of storm clouds gone past, give way, upwards, to the pale, many washed blues of the sky.

It has snowed just a little overnight.  Where the naked-branched trees are closer to the road, the snow lightly covers the grasses and weeds like a butterscotch pudding waiting to boil when a milky slurry swirls to the top of the pot, not quite covering it all.

The winter sun flows through the trees making spider webs of shadows darker than the tree trunks.

The unending monotony of wire fences with their sentinel posts guards against what?...intruders or escapees?

Some cedars, hiding amongst the larger trees have a flour dusting of snow.

The service roads are totally white as if the snow chose those long lines to heavily blanket the ground where trees’ dead summer growth didn’t interfere.

The bottom fourth of the fences hide in longer grasses and weeds.  As if, could you cut out their growth, you could slip underneath where access is hidden.
And there, an intrusive, thin, brightly colored sign says, “Land for Sale.”  Ending someone’s joy of ownership, coupled with struggle, hope and pride.  Will the sale end in more “foreign” ownership of not unlimited land?

All along are long narrow rectangles of small ponds, gouged out, no doubt, to make the raised roadways.

Then a sprinkling of struggling homes.  This one is long narrow metal box, with cold steps rising to a skinny metal door, sided by metal windows barely big enough to light the insides.  An old boxy garage, with leaning walls.  A line of smaller and smaller out-building sheds, small doors closed.  Then as the unkept sheds thin out, the rusty remains of machinery crowd their walls until they too thin out and more trees and weeds take over.

A partially ice-coated pond with cajillions of ducks crowding the edges of the ice patches like thirsty bar patrons clamoring to place their orders, shoulder to shoulder and leaving no space for any line crashers.

And finally, at the end of the pond, around an outward curve of ice, they are bunched up deeply, like music lovers around an outdoor stage performance.  All motionless, a still life.

There’s a huge, fat, leaning tree trunk, with a long branch-missing hole big enough to stand in.  Rot will enter.  Eventually only neighboring trees will hold it up and then not even they will have the stamina and position to maintain its proud stance.

And then the flat plains give way to the hint of hills to come.  At first like bumps under a blanket.  Bumps that a determined hand could smooth away.  Bumps with dark dots of cedar, like stringy yarn knots tied to a quilt.
   
After hours like this the buildings thicken and the signs multiply and...viola!  There is not just a town with implied two churches, fading main street and a convenience store, but a hub of box stores, motels, fast food joints, gas stations, hospitals and hustling.   And then, three exits and two overpasses later, the open land has its turn again.

One cow raises its tail a bit ...I’m just glad I’m far enough away to miss the splatter and pungent smells.  Corn should grow well in that small spot next season.  Passing birds, not as fussy as us, will feed first and by spring the insects and maggots might set up a temporary camp.  Some things I should think and not write. But if you don’t write them when they flit through your mind they are forever gone in the world like the farm I loved, giving up brief memories that barely flit through my mind now.
   
NO TRESPASSING!  NO TRESPASSING!  White lettering on black tires draped over fence-posts.  I’d agree if the place was mine.  It would be JUST MY place to wander and wonder about.

The windmills aren’t very tall.  But they are in working order.  Unlike their failing comrades back home.  Unlike the new white stationary birds of power now, not just dotting Iowa farmland, but intruding and talking over calmer views.  Powerful.  Like the “Tripod” trilogy.  Stalking.  Taking over.

So, not every telling needs a plot, climax and ending.