w i n t e r
cutting the wheat
We cut the wheat three times a year just down from the hard curve in Brinkleferry road. It is a large field surrounded by tall pines and, strangely enough, cacti. My grandfather showed me how you could break pieces of growth off them and just toss them aside, carefree as that, and they'd grow.
Summer after summer, year after year I broke cacti and threw the pieces in all directions, daring them to refuse to root. To dry up in the hot Southern sun, but they never did. I tried drowning them in the wheat field's irrigation ditch but they only floated away and grew at the end into the largest cactus of them all.
And we still cut the wheat three times a year.
goodnight 2.18.99