THE RURAL LIFE
At the Edge of the Visible
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
November 26, 2004
Darkness seems to collect at this time of year, as though it had trickled downhill from late June's solstice into the sump of November. Fog settles onto damp leaves in the woods - not Prufrock's yellow fog or the amber fog of the suburbs, but a gray-white hanging mist that feels like the down or underfur of some pervasive beast.
White birches line the slopes beyond the pasture as if they were there to fence in the fog, to keep it from inundating the house in a weightless avalanche. The day stays warm, but even at noon it feels as though dusk has already set in. The chickens roost early. The horses linger by the gate, ready for supper.
Usually I feel starved for light about now. But this year I've reveled in these damp, dark November days. It's a kind of waking hibernation, I suppose, a desire to live enclosed, for a while at least, in a world defined by the vaporous edges of our small farm.
My ambition extends all the way to feeding the woodstove and sitting with the Border terrier, Tavish, in my lap, which perfectly suits his ambitions. The frenzy of the spring garden has long since faded. My plans to refence the place, to make it sheep-proof, have been put on hold for another year. We're just sitting around waiting for the ground to freeze.
This is not how it's supposed to be, I know. I keep an endless mental list of the things that need to be done. But when a gray day comes, when the horses stand over their hay as though there were all the time in the world to eat it, one of the things that needs to be done is to sit still.
The ducks and geese are especially good at that. They come out of their yard in a rush in the mornings and forage ravenously across the pastures and into the garden debris. But an hour or two later they lie quietly on the lawn, like ships on a green sea, some gazing intently at the world around them, some with their heads tucked into their wings. I consider myself a student of their stillness.
On a gray November day, it's surprising how long it takes the light to finally fade. Not long ago I visited a friend on her ranch in eastern Colorado. She wanted to work her sheepdog, Wiz, in an enclosure set among the cottonwoods in a sandy draw. The very edge of darkness had already come. My friend drove a small flock of Katahdin sheep, scattering, out of their pen. At the sight of Wiz darting back and forth, they bunched.
There is not much luminosity in a sheep's fleece, but there was enough to rest my eyes upon. After a while, the sheep returned to their pen, and we walked down a path under the cottonwoods to the edge of a meadow. We stood in full night. But out in the shortgrass, dusk still lingered as though it might never go out.
VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
