I stood at the glass door, watching. Beyond the stone deck and the birdhouse two delicate blue eggs lay nestled atop carefully arranged blades of grass. The field beyond the fence was bright with spring. A tree named Walter lifted its branches into the morning. Every tree within daily view should have a name. A dog bred to bear burdens wandered lazily through the grass, distracted by an over-dramatic cardinal or maybe the way the breeze had begun to smell like spring. The coffee in my mug tasted faintly of hazelnut and milk. Scrambled eggs cooled on a plate. Cologne drifted through the kitchen. The juice from a red grape slid down the back of my throat. The field was busy with singing. Not birds alone. Something larger. Something hidden. The busyness of living moved through the grass like wind moving through tousled hair or waves crossing the sea. At the time, I thought the field would always be there. The eggs. The cardinal. Walter. The dog. The glass door. The man standing somewhere behind me. Months later he disappeared. Then the seasons continued one second one hour one page at a time. Summer crossed the field. Autumn followed. Winter bent the grass flat. One afternoon I found myself standing on the opposite side of the same field. Far beyond the fence. Far beyond the glass door. Far beyond the woman who used to stand in that kitchen and watch. The singing was gone. The grass was gone. The hill itself seemed smaller. Yellow machines moved through the earth lifting, turning, leveling. Steel teeth entered the ground. Mud spread where pasture had been. The field I remembered was being dismantled one scoop at a time. A subdivision would stand there soon. Roads. Mailboxes. Driveways. Children who would never know there had once been a field. I watched for a long time. Long enough for the machines to continue their sweaty work. Long enough to notice that Walter was still standing. Long enough to realize that I was no longer looking at the same landscape. Or from the same place. Or through the same eyes. The field stretched between what had happened and what remained. I stood, watching the earth being turned over, feeling the soil being turned over, tasting the smoke and smothering just a little. "What if I take one step backward?" I wondered. "One more," I whispered. Artifacts churned deep and then deeper burying and then buried. And I drove away waving to Walter in the rearview mirror. — Iris Lennox
Iris Lennox 