The Darkness We Are Up Against

The joy inherent in noticing the unnoticeable. Trailing my fingers along the last of the apples, then bringing it to Jack, the blind horse, an offering to the darkness we are up against. Pickled cukes, green beans, summer squash and garlic. Overheated kitchens. Tagging trees for felling in October, not knowing the argument against it but for Christ's sake trying. Sparrows in the overgrown forsythia alongside the barn, dew on spider webs strung along the east side of the pasture fence, and two days ago a female cardinal singing high in the tallest of the remaining hemlocks. Rocks jutting through soil, last of the violets laid low. The question why are you always repeating yourself as if there is no other way answered always with is there another way, can you show me, do you know. Geese circling the cornfield, whole rows sagging from last week's rain. We harvest the potatoes, tear down the bean plants, we begin thinking about the garden in spring which is what it means to put the garden to bed for winter, which is coming. This sense of being alien, this kingdom in which your antagonism is murderous, this drama you are never not engaged in. "Be mine" was always a bad idea but "won't you be my neighbor" was onto something.