Читать книгу Blueberry Fool - Thom Rock - Страница 8

Only a few days ago the wind rippled over the tops of the grasses, the wispy globes of dandelion and the buttercups, painting great sweeping patterns in the field. But now a more structured design emerges. The stems and leaves and flowers lie in concentric rows that follow the contours of the land, revealing the curvaceous earth from which they sprang. It’s the first cut of the season, and everywhere you go this week you can hear the hum and whir of tractors bouncing through hay fields. One day the machines pull the wide-mouthed cutting blade behind their tall wheels; the giant twirling prongs of the hay rake dance behind them the next. The bailers and trucks, with their rickety wooden side rails, follow in turn. If all goes well, that is to say if it does not rain, this tender, sweet first crop of meadow grass will be put up in barns and sheds by week’s end.

Like so much of the land here in the northeastern corner of Vermont, our fields are cut by the farmer down the road. Today, one of the hired hands has come by to ted and rake what was freshly mown yesterday. When he sees me he stops the tractor and stills the spinning spokes of the rake, climbs down from the tattered seat, and comes over to say hello. As we shake hands, I feel what must be nearly sixty years of farmwork in the thick skin of his palm. His name, Butch, is embroidered above the pocket of his blue work shirt. They’re almost a week late getting out into the fields, he tells me, what with all the rain the last few weeks. But, it’ll make for a good crop. He’s got to get going though, the other boys will be coming by with the harvester and the truck around noon and it’ll take him three times around the field for every one of theirs, don’t you know. I want to say, “Reckon so,” but I don’t. A twinkle starts in Butch’s eye and he actually says, “Gotta make hay while the sun shines.” It’s funny because it’s corny, and it’s true. Then he’s running back to the tractor, scrambling up the tall back wheels and into the bouncy seat like a seventeen-year-old farmboy.

It’s too tricky for the big machines to get through the wet swale between the upper and lower meadow, so I keep an opening in this bottom field and a walking path to it cut with a little push mower. In the summer there are wild blueberries ripe for the picking, but year-round it is simply a beautiful, secluded place to walk to. This afternoon, while cutting the grass there, I nicked a low branch of a spruce tree and its spicy smell filled the hot air. I felt like Proust with his fragrant petites madeleines as a memory from my childhood washed over me. Somewhere in my brain the smell of spruce became that of Vicks VapoRub and I could suddenly feel my mother’s hand over my heart rubbing the greasy menthol into my chest. I felt unexpectedly taken care of and immensely loved. The hairs went up on the back of my neck and a shiver ran up my spine as I considered the decades that have passed since I last felt her touch.

I pulled myself back to the present, registered the still-running engine of the mower, and finished the path to the berries. But the experience followed me back through the meadow and up to the house. As I sat on the deck looking out at Bear Mountain and Burke in the distance, I could not shake the longing I felt. Melancholy mixed with a tender, sweet memory.

The sudden appearance of a hummingbird quickly altered my thoughts. He was on his way to the ruby bells tinkling over the edge of the flowerpot not three feet away from where I was sitting. Stopping midair and hovering there, his wings whirring out to each side, he looked like a crucifix momentarily suspended in front of me. Surely a celestial being, a seraph; he was a blur of wings. Then, he was off to the business of gathering fuel from the ringing blossoms.

How simple it is to assign the supernatural to hummingbirds, to fit them into some spiritual metaphor. Indeed, with their bright plumage iridescing in the sun, how could they not become emblems of joy? But, the colors that bounce off their feathers are pigments mixed only by our eyes when we add the element of light. And when we do we name them after what they most resemble: rubies, amethysts, topaz jewels. Or, we take note of their enchanting and flickering flight and dub them purple-crowned fairies, violet-tailed sylphs. More often than not, when we think of hummingbirds, it is as delicate, nectar-sipping things, diminutive spirits that spend their time feasting on ambrosia and beauty.

But the little creatures are omnivorous beings. All manner of insects find their way up those slender, delicate-looking bills. And the life we see as devoted to kissing flowers is, in reality, a struggle to stay alive. The tiny birds have voracious hearts and must feed nearly constantly in order to live. Place a hummingbird feeder outside your window and you can watch altruism and generosity fly away: it quickly becomes territory. Pity any fool that dares alight on its sweet shores! The dominant hummer will deliver a dazzling sideswipe. In fact, the little hummingbird is the originator of “shock and awe.” Blazing warriors, they duel and joust for sustenance. By day’s end, the exhausted things have little energy left. At night their rapid-fire hearts slow to a dangerously low rate. Dropping from nearly five hundred beats per minute to as little as thirty-six, the nocturnal gamble becomes whether or not they will have enough energy in the morning to rev their insatiable hearts up to a life-sustaining rhythm. Some never see the dawn.

Those that wake to a new day haven’t the time to bother with yesterday—or tomorrow, for that matter. The future is contained for them in each moment’s drop of nectar. If their heart is beating, the only question becomes how to spend those heartbeats. And there’s only room for one answer. They live fiercely, spending their heartbeats wildly. Making hay while the sun shines.