nablopomo

nablopomo

As you drive the two-lane highways of the West, your eyes are drawn to the rows of Lombardy Poplars, planted in dry fields decades ago to protect the crops from Chinook Winds and curious neighbors. A storm blows in tonight, and the leaves have taken a brief respite from their fall fluttering as they share final moments with summer-long stems and rotting fruit. Tomorrow we return to the nakedness of winter, and look to our forebears who promised that the cottonwoods would always protect us from these drastic changes in pressure.

“They have sheltered this farm for 50 years,” the wind-blown widow tells you.

“Not from this,” you think.

You throw yourself, then, into your work, to sustain the suddenly exhilarating sensation of falling, beginning even in the airport terminal, tapping away at the keyboard until you realize the screen is black and likely has been since the delay in your flight was announced. I catch a lady watching me, and remember that I try so hard to relive the recent past that I often discomfort strangers.

I wonder, too, where this angst will be preserved, and I cannot help but imagine myself presenting clear plastic bags to airport security personnel, three ounces or less, ready to bring the plane down with the sheer weight of my hyperdramatics.

Instead, I shut the computer and stare back at the woman until she looks away, then repeat the answer to a simple question I was recently asked, “What does your day look like?” I describe habits that run so deeply, they would appear as fathomless waters dissecting otherwise barren deserts, with no explanation of their source.

“Did you ever think you would cut down those trees?” I ask.

“No. Did you?”

“I don’t know,” I answer.

But I think I did.