21 November 02

Loading Grain


So much is poetic. I think now that beauty could be my salvation. If I can always see new things or old things in new ways. not to go too far but just continue to see things with the same joy, then 120 days should be much less than a chore.

I was standing on deck watching the grain being loaded and was struck by what the dust was doing. Little pellets of dust were blowing off the conveyor belt. they would fall to deck but on the way they would begin to fall apart leaving a trail of dust that would abruptly end in mid air when the clod was expended. Each of these would explode at a different point filling the air with little streamers like tiny comets each one jumping to freedom but finding its self disintegrated almost as fast as it had begun its celebration. Were it not for the fact that I was supposed to be watching the lines I could have stood there for hours in a half trance watching, with the light of the setting sun a little fire words show.

Elsewhere other things fall gently from the cargo gear. At some point on the conveyor belt there must be a roller that is a little out of place where rather than smoothly supporting the belt it jars it, only slightly which is just perfect to create the desired effect. you will know the spot because there is an even dusting of grain over the deck under where footsteps are soon concealed and a gentle pitter patter is heard on your hard hat. It sounds like a light rain on a window, but it is closer, tap, tap, tapping at your hard hat and a gentle swoosh, not a swoosh but a "sh" as they hit the piles of grain at your feet.

A light localized hail storm. there might be only one on the deck or as many as three. the gentle rain storms come and go in a capricious manor with enough regularity to keep the watch entertaining, but not too much so as to make their occurrence less than noteworthy,

I should mention these little storms or showers are not totally benign. If you are wearing short sleeves then roughly half of the grains that hit your arm will announce their presence with a little pain, the other half with just a quick tap.

Where it that more came with just the tap it would be somewhat soothing to stand under the shower. the tapping is of coarse quite random so you can't focus on just one spot, causing you to think only of the general area of the tapping never quite relaxing or tensing any part of the arm like in some massage styles.

But nay, it is not a massage because that half of the wheat that hits point on, or so I will postulate, override the soothing properties of the other half, and cause you to feel that pain is the prominent feature of the precipitation.

For this reason I stand back and listen and watch, because that is the good part, and the good part is what I want to remember.