Butch
Poseur
- Likes
- 526
- Location
- San Jose, California
Winds of Change,
by Jason Johnson
Early last week, a thunderstorm rolled in off the ocean and, like a great steam-powered beast, crawled its way across Watsonville. The pressure dropped, the sky grew dark, and the barn was alive with swallows, hurrying back to the chirping fledglings in their nests. Black clouds rolled and churned, climbing upward from the base, then downward through the center, riding the wind from shore to mountain range until its billowing progress was halted at the base of the mountains, where it sat, brooding. Lobbing lightning downward towards the earth like a toddler throws toys, innocent in its aggression. After a time, as though it had finished some arduous task, it quietly dissipated. Cautiously, but not as slowly as you would expect, the birds dropped from their perches and took flight across the slough. It was winter, the season of the swallow.
In honor of, or opposition to, the surrender of this land to these colorful birds, the pear trees have cast off their crimson leaves and softened fruit, laying themselves bare before the gray blusters of December. The branches are the same as when last the swallows passed, yet different. New growth on old wood is like new understanding of an old memory. Only when the leaves are pulled away, can you see their shape. The trees have shown themselves better, stronger, yet altogether the same. To the birds, they are a means. A gray perch in a gray sky, painted blue and gold with the ruffling of feathers, too fleeting to count.
The birds have made naked the wind along with the trees. In the mist, it moves like a spectre. Barely visible, but visible all the same. No less tangible than the cobwebs in the barn, where the swallows wait for spring so they can ride that same spectre northward again, leaving this great patchwork of land unobscured by the toils of summer. They don’t understand why we are here, and I don’t understand why they leave. We are constant. We are where they were born and where they will birth. They are change. They come with the winter and they take it when they leave. They expose this land for what it is, and in their absence we fill it with noise and people and worries and labor. But right now, it is beautiful. I forgot how beautiful.
Butch's note: Jason runs a CSA, community supported agriculture group, where we pay in advance and pick up local fruits and vegetables once a week. Lettuce, chard, kale, squash, apples, strawberries... Strawberries that were picked like, this morning! Cursed, we are.
Jason is a cool guy, and apparently, can write...
High Ground Organics
by Jason Johnson
Early last week, a thunderstorm rolled in off the ocean and, like a great steam-powered beast, crawled its way across Watsonville. The pressure dropped, the sky grew dark, and the barn was alive with swallows, hurrying back to the chirping fledglings in their nests. Black clouds rolled and churned, climbing upward from the base, then downward through the center, riding the wind from shore to mountain range until its billowing progress was halted at the base of the mountains, where it sat, brooding. Lobbing lightning downward towards the earth like a toddler throws toys, innocent in its aggression. After a time, as though it had finished some arduous task, it quietly dissipated. Cautiously, but not as slowly as you would expect, the birds dropped from their perches and took flight across the slough. It was winter, the season of the swallow.
In honor of, or opposition to, the surrender of this land to these colorful birds, the pear trees have cast off their crimson leaves and softened fruit, laying themselves bare before the gray blusters of December. The branches are the same as when last the swallows passed, yet different. New growth on old wood is like new understanding of an old memory. Only when the leaves are pulled away, can you see their shape. The trees have shown themselves better, stronger, yet altogether the same. To the birds, they are a means. A gray perch in a gray sky, painted blue and gold with the ruffling of feathers, too fleeting to count.
The birds have made naked the wind along with the trees. In the mist, it moves like a spectre. Barely visible, but visible all the same. No less tangible than the cobwebs in the barn, where the swallows wait for spring so they can ride that same spectre northward again, leaving this great patchwork of land unobscured by the toils of summer. They don’t understand why we are here, and I don’t understand why they leave. We are constant. We are where they were born and where they will birth. They are change. They come with the winter and they take it when they leave. They expose this land for what it is, and in their absence we fill it with noise and people and worries and labor. But right now, it is beautiful. I forgot how beautiful.
Butch's note: Jason runs a CSA, community supported agriculture group, where we pay in advance and pick up local fruits and vegetables once a week. Lettuce, chard, kale, squash, apples, strawberries... Strawberries that were picked like, this morning! Cursed, we are.
Jason is a cool guy, and apparently, can write...
High Ground Organics
