The Redwing Blackbirds Have Left, The Spray Does its Work, I take a Ride in an MRI

The red wing blackbirds have left. This time last summer they hung out on the wires, old friends that I greeted. They watched me, then flew from wire to wire. I hoped one would land on my shoulder prove I was a saint. No such luck. This year my rowdy dog would chase them. The kildeer don’t even trot ahead of me. I miss these birds. Even the robins are gone. But the barn swallows have stayed for now. One swooped by us as we turned into the driveway after our walk. And the sparrows make good noise.

Our hay field became a killing field when we cut and baled our hay. The dogs found the wing from a redwing blackbird and a dried up toad. I pulled them out of their mouths and missed the flock that settled in our trees, riotous and loud, when they first arrived. I miss their chatter in the willows. For a bit I thought the hawks had left, but as soon as I thought this, I saw a red tail hawk sitting on top of our dead pine, a blackbird, next to him. When he dropped down to fly the smaller bird harassed him. Have they left because of the hawk? Bruce said he saw an owl sitting on the ridgeline of our barn. Have they left because of the owl?

Has it been too dry for them? Or is it because there are no insects. The lightning bugs still came, their lights settled low along our yard. I tried to video them, but their blinks didn’t show up. It was a wonder seeing them as Bruce and I and the dogs walked in from our sunset walk. (Even here in August remnants of the sunshine glow off the northern horizon at 9:30. Still. Morgen has begun shedding for her winter coat.) Have the birds left because the sun says it’s time to go south?

We thought the rain was coming, so I mowed, but all I did was clip the grass down to crackles underfoot. While I was mowing I saw what looked like a leaf that fluttered low to the ground. I stopped. Did I hit it? I got off. (I hate getting off the machine. If it stops, it’s not easy for me to start.) And went and got Bruce who was spinning the weed eater. It took a bit to get his attention. What is it? A moth. A giant moth. You could barely see it. He touched it with twig. It’s wings opened. Wide. With four eyes. Did I hit it? “No” he said. “They only wake up to mate and then die. They have no mouths. A polyphemus moth.” Last fall we saw a giant green caterpillar right near here. We put him by the birch tree. Maybe he came back in this new, beautiful form, though beautiful as a caterpillar.

The corn has grown so tall and dense, when I peer between the rows it looks like a deep dark forest, where there is danger of getting lost, where corn gods might rise. If Mr. or Mrs. Dog took off into those corridors it would be easy to lose them. Once on a walk, we saw a deer step out of the willows by a low spot. Both dogs pulled hard. They’d be gone if I let go.

I look at those shadows in the corn, the paths between the stalks and remember looking for arrowheads at a neighbor’s farm. He showed us the bags he’d collected. The rumor our land had a burial ground, was more likely his flat several loops of the Normanskill to the north. On the farm where I grew up I only found one.

When I walk up to the Peterson’s farm, I can smell the sweet scent of tasseled corn dropping pollen to ears, each red silk touching each pale kernel. I can also smell the chemical. The other day a helicopter swooped and sprayed and rose over top of the neighboring soybeans. Another day, a heavy plane, it’s engine loud roared over our house and barn, aiming for beans the next field over. I admire the skill these pilots use, clearing trees and electric lines, and aiming to release their spray close to the crop but not on neighbors’ houses. Precision flying as the helicopter dropped down next to our neighbor’s house. Barnstormers. Precision flying that demands attention, a stomach strong enough to withstand the roller coaster of ups and downs and banking quickly off to the side. I couldn’t help but think of the drunk barnstormer who finally destroyed the monster alien ships in the movie Independence Day. I couldn’t help but think of their bravery. Our neighbor says they enjoy flying

But I don’t know how these pilots or the on the ground applicators can withstand the damage these chemicals do to their bodies. Our neighbor says they are spraying fungicide to get rid of tar spot which prevents photosynthesis, a chemical that lets light get in. We use these beans for animal feed, seed oil, and biofuels. The plants are as high as my hips and a good green.

Poison air with smoke. The smoke from Canadian, Minnesotan and western wildfires plunged to the ground so thickly it looked like fake fog. And made beautiful sunsets and eerie moon rises. These days I pay attention to my breath. Lately it doesn’t take much to breathe heavy. And we’re not talking passion. Right now, my interstitial lung disease is stable. My pulmonologist is keeping a close watch, has prescribed an inhaler twice a day for mild asthma.

What happens to us if we can’t breathe, breathe the ruah of the Holy Spirit filling our lungs and hearts with himself? What happens if the air we breathe is poisoned?

It’s the roadside flowers I’m seeing—flowers that have not been mowed because the state has cut our township’s budget. The chicory, what I call corn flowers, are bright blue. Queen Anne’s lace (wild carrot) dances in the breeze. Morning glories wind around Queen Anne lace. Evening primrose like a tiny lantern in the grass. Quiet wild roses. And pups that sidle up to the very edge of the road to take a dump.

When Martin Shaw told the The Underworld of a Fairy Tale: A Telling of an Earth Gnome about a girl who ate an apple and she and her sisters were thrown down a well by a ground god. Apparently, there are earth spirits and water spirits that might be creatures born of the ground that are neither good nor evil but spirits rising out of the earth. The ground around here is so tamed, and I’m so blind, I doubt I’ll ever meet one. I’m not sure I want to, though as a kid, like many children, I wished Aslan would roar out of the woods.  

Of course, the youngest sister eats the apple. The earth opens her mouth and all three sisters are plunged into the earth, buried. The youngest hunter, accepts the challenge to find them. Each one is combing dragons’ hair. He kills the dragons, throws their tongues into his bag. (Did the sister grieve the wild creatures they tended? Did they clips locks of their hair as keepsakes?) He and his brothers hoist the girls to the top. Of course, his older brothers betray him and he’s plunged into the well. The darkness. When he plays a flute lying on the ground,  he finds his way out and marries the oldest daughter. Their grieving father stops hoarding the apples and feeds his kingdom.

I couldn’t help but think of the day my brother and I and his wife climbed into the Clarksville Cave. “Come on,” he said, when he beckoned me to climb into a chimney, barely wide enough to fit his hips let alone mine. I shivered as I watched his carbide lamp crawl away. “Come on, the room on the other side is beautiful,” he said. The walls echoing. I felt the weight of the limestone and earth surrounding him, close in. Did he do it to fight the fear of the dark, of the close? I said no. I would not climb into the rock. What if the light went out? What if my hips got stuck? What if the terror got the best of me?

I couldn’t help but think of my terror at MRI machines.

The MRI machine sounded alive, a predator that circled, and purred like a gaucho swinging his his whip back and forth over the horse’s shoulders. It sounded alive and growling, waiting to devour. Maybe it is. A machine that terrified me, the ceiling not far from my chin, a machine that felt like coffin, that jack hammers a whirr of sound, prying into my innermost parts. Buried alive. The machine peering. I fight the terror to get the test. This time to see if my lower back is failing because my legs ache. I fight the terror and then realize that one day I may have to fight the terror of the cross, the strong bulls of Bashan surrounding me, have you seen bulls? Their power. Their weight. Their tiny members and dropped balls? I may have to fight the miry clay, where there is no footing, and the question: Who do you serve? And the price the painful loss of this rumpy, beloved body. 

My heart pounding. My breath. Saying the Jesus prayer: Lord Jesus Christ son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner. Several times before I’ve had visions—Driving Mrs. Horse out our driveway when at the time, no way would this happen. Another time I was riding Tessie through a pine forest, the pines strong in my nose. I was sniffing Frankincense. This time, I found a dopey quiet, with no fields or horse coming to mind. Just quiet. And the computer froze. They tried to start it up. But it froze again, so I had rolled off the table to go to another machine and wrecked my lunch date with Bruce. Did the energy spun off from my dopey meditation shut the thing down? I like to think so, though probably not.

All that energy, energy I like to think is the same as the northern lights smeared across the sky. poured into my pelvis. That night my valley rose. It rose high as a mountain, straining towards the sky, towards the real lights the sun’s storm flung out to the north, the magentas and purples and sometimes green.

The next evening, Bruce came for me, said come look. At the storms to the east and south. I left America’s Got Talent and walked out to the darkness and stood by the corner of the paddock. With him. And watched the moon rise over the lightning flashing in the clouds. I thought of Moses and Sinai and the terror of the children, my own terror because God is so other. My pastor reminds over and over: There is therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. We stood quietly and watched a long time.

This morning the moon was bright orange. Like a fire in a window in a wood stove.       

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