He was so sick of cornfields. Oh god all the cornfields. Not just in the well-edited ads, but in the real life, in the real truth of the bus wheels rolling. Back in the early days, in Iowa, in towns like that state has, it was all ghostly old stalks or it was new ones, fruitful and burning with worms. It was all corn, this country. But those places were still where everything was centered, the yellow heart of this blue country. So he went, shook bony hands, kissed unfamiliar cheeks, smiled basic smiles in prairie wind, in farmland heat. Oh how life had always said something to him! Oh how there was always this voice, this thing prodding in him, this spirit, this loud and undeniable call, his dad’s last gift, to move on up and ahead. America is a big place, is all he could think as he watched it all drift by — whether up close from some creaking wooden stage, or faraway in a jet, coursing over the deserts and grass and disappearing trees of the old eastern mountains. There he was, doing the business of turning strangers into friends, of cheering into the night about such harsh intangibles. The common good, the civic spirit, the lost ideas we all once had, buried somewhere in our easy, privileged DNA. He longed to key into that, to open that treasure box up and bathe in its light. But instead everything was hard, it all tasted like Massachusetts stone. He longed for the salty wind, the cool leafy caress, the wooden embrace of home. And yet here he was. Looking at corn. More corn. Will there ever not be corn. Will we ever not exist, when our planet is even older. Will heaven be enough, out there in space. He caught himself in the grip of a deep sadness, felt its power clamping over the important parts of his spirit. And he wanted to shake it off, part of himself wanted to be rid of it. But another part fell into it, relaxed into it, said Hey. Hey. We feel this way. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we feel this way. So he let the corn be the corn, and as the light burst in through the window, Mitt Romney steeled his heart, he breathed in a rush of confidence, he pressed on. Oh gods old and new, he pressed on. There, into the air, above the fields. Lost, but known.Â
via O Pioneer! http://richardlawson.tumblr.com/post/31043371848/met
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