The golden promise

A day out from yet another winter storm, and it looks like we might finally get all of the corn out of the fields. There's been a lot of speculation as to whether or not local corn will make weight this year, because it froze and got snowed in before maturation. When the kernels freeze dry on the cob, they lose moisture, nutrients and weight. Because our corn has been out in the field for so long now, it's hard telling just how much it will weigh at the final dump. Since lost weight means lots yields means lost money, this has been the topic of conversation between my dad and my nephew and my former brother-in-law.

I don't understand the mathematics of this problem, so I stay out of the conversations, but I do know what it's like to feel frozen in place, locked into your surroundings before you have the chance to get away.It's a lot like being stuck some place against your will, not growing in the ways you want to, and not accomplishing anything else, either. But corn kernels, inanimate, silent, what do they know of dreams and accomplishment, of a world beyond the ruddy red cob and papery-fine yellow husk? What do the kernels know of thought? Nothing. And yet there is some majesty to them, some inner ability to sprout and grow and flourish. Nature takes its course and the roots drop down lower as the sun wears on through the months of summer; leaves lengthen and grow strong; tassels blossom like golden plumes arching from the greenest of volcanoes.

Farmers notice, you bet they do, eyeing their rows at sunup and then dusk, watching their fields of green and contemplating the money in their pocket.. people notice, sure they do. Just like they notice the way their children play in the muddy rows and pick bugs off strong stalks. When a harvest runs late, as this year's has, then too, the farmer notices.

He notices the way the clouds build up in the sky after each successive snow, wondering will it blow in the northern edge again this time? Will we get a dry spell and get this out of here? He notices the way the numbers bounce up and down on the scale, 45, 47, 48, not weighing enough. He notices the way the kernels have shrunk in their valleys, little wizened teeth without any power. The farmer has a keen eye and an intimate relationship with the land and the weather and the people who know it as well as he does. But does he notice anything else, from seed-in to harvest-out? Does he notice the way his family misses him at the dinner table? Or that his eldest wants more than just a connection over the crops? Does he notice the shining bright faces of his youngest child, the rural outcast, the one with other dreams and city-bound thought? The one who is trying to shrink from the world she doesn't understand or want to like?

Not so much, because until he sees his corn in the bin and the land lying fallow, or filled wtih cattle wearing away at the stalks, all he sees is the golden promise of the future, and the future is the farm.