Friday, August 01, 2008
FROM MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL
AUGUST 2, 2002
The storms did not blow through yesterday as forecast. We kept hot weather through the afternoon and evening. The air in darkness cooled considerably. It's a pleasant morning. Blue sky, and perhaps another steamer coming. I'd hate to think that August will let us down.
I think of the heat, no breeze, standing in a field of tall grass as a child, grass almost taller than I was. The smell on the air. The smell of the green juice being pulled out of everything, a baked greenness. The buzz of flies. The sense that if the wind doesn't move the grass soon, nothing will ever move again, that everything will be caught in this instant forever. Perhaps that's what hell is - that hot moment of an August afternoon caught forever, no escape, no breath of freshness, nothing moving, ever.
News from Nebraska - there will be losses totalling a billion and a half dollars this summer, due to the drought. The newspaper from Smith Center, Kansas, has reported that elevators have far less grain coming in than during the normal harvest.
I really do have to discuss with myself my notion of ghosts on the landscape - ghosts of people, of buildings, of lodges and teepees. Everything that was still is, faintly, faintly. Sometimes I see a build that still stands and the building speaks to me. How do I record what it says?
The radio says we'll have a mild day compared to those we have had recently.
AUGUST 2, 2002
The storms did not blow through yesterday as forecast. We kept hot weather through the afternoon and evening. The air in darkness cooled considerably. It's a pleasant morning. Blue sky, and perhaps another steamer coming. I'd hate to think that August will let us down.
I think of the heat, no breeze, standing in a field of tall grass as a child, grass almost taller than I was. The smell on the air. The smell of the green juice being pulled out of everything, a baked greenness. The buzz of flies. The sense that if the wind doesn't move the grass soon, nothing will ever move again, that everything will be caught in this instant forever. Perhaps that's what hell is - that hot moment of an August afternoon caught forever, no escape, no breath of freshness, nothing moving, ever.
News from Nebraska - there will be losses totalling a billion and a half dollars this summer, due to the drought. The newspaper from Smith Center, Kansas, has reported that elevators have far less grain coming in than during the normal harvest.
I really do have to discuss with myself my notion of ghosts on the landscape - ghosts of people, of buildings, of lodges and teepees. Everything that was still is, faintly, faintly. Sometimes I see a build that still stands and the building speaks to me. How do I record what it says?
The radio says we'll have a mild day compared to those we have had recently.
