Spring Landscape A wake of black waves foamy with pebbles follows the plow, rolls all the way up to the fence, slaps into the grass and trickles back, while farther out a spray of white gulls, wings like splashes, are splashing down. Spring on the prairie, a sky reaching forever in every direction, and here at my feet, distilled from all that blue, a single drop caught in the spoon of a leaf, a robin's egg. A Woman and Two Men I was past in an instant. It was raining, just softly, after a morning-long shower, no sounds but the hiss of the pavement, my wipers whupping on low. Two men in hardhats were parked on the shoulder in a truck with a ladder rack and a bed full of tools. A woman driving a pickup with a camper had pulled up a few yards behind them and had walked up the road to the passenger's side, her hair wet, her arms wrapped about her. She had boots, a fringed leather jacket with beads on the fringe, and jeans with galaxies of rhinestones on the pockets. The man on the passenger's side had rolled down his window, but only partway, and was staring out over the hood while the driver leaned far forward and over to talk, his shoulder pressed into the wheel, all this in a flash, those three at the side of the highway, the fourth glancing over in passing. I could in that instant feel something common between us, among us, around us, within us. It was more than a light April rain playing over a road. Up the Block Maybe you saw me pass by, walking, or maybe you didn't. I raised a hand in a tentative wave, but you were intent upon your watering, as if to make sure the spray from the hose fell evenly over your small plot of petunias, purple ,pink, and white. The nozzle was yellow, of plastic, much like a showerhead, sweeping or brushing the bright drops evenly, lacquering over the flowers, the dark purple ones deeper in color under the layers of glazes, and the pink brighter, too. The white looked the same, but you'd probably planted those there mostly to set off the others. From one end to the other you slowly and gently swept the soft whiskbroom of droplets, enrapt, or so it appeared, by what you saw sprinkling out of your hand, upon which I could see drops forming, each diamond-bright on a knuckle, and I'd guess they were cold, perhaps even numbing, but you'd gotten hold of a rainbow, and couldn't let go. Excerpted from Red Stilts by Ted Kooser All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
