Running from Grief
Beneath a blue ceiling in the fields of Burtingy, Switzerland, fields rise out of the soil in patterns across the hill, templates that line the earth in rows of green. Each shade of green reflects a different crop: kale close to the ground, corn stalks that reach to the sky, a field of grass to feed les vaches that ruminate over its offerings beneath rows of les pommiers. The sound of their bells echo in the crisp air of autumn.
The farmers are turning the soil to prepare the ground that nourished fruit last season. A green tractor does the work of tilling. Its motor rumbles as it makes each pass back and forth, back and forth through patches of land. The first day of my journey here cornstalks mark the top of the hill. Rows of stalks crackle in the wind. Their arms cradle ears of corn that have dried into kernels of maize. At the corner of the row one lone poppy sprouts beneath the arms. A blood red drop of remembrance spilled among the sheaves.
The next day I walk up the hill with my friend. The cornstalks and the poppy are gone. All that remains are reminders etched into lines in the earth.
One crop remains. One curious to me.
Patches of sunflower stalks rise up like soldiers, sentinels of the harvest. Their wilted brown bodies hold up heavy heads, heads once crowned with golden glory. These heads hang low now, remaining seed dried and drooping, once heralds who burst open towards la ciel in aurelion light.
Each time I pass this field I photograph its remains from different angles. A close up of a withered head. A landscape of its successive ranks. A portrait of angled rows the morning Mont Blanc backdrops the tops of their scaffolded heads against the sky.
It is the morning the soil of my own heart is overturned from past grief that I run to these hills to escape the shadows that lurked for many seasons.
Until now deep roots of grief’s darkness had not been tilled.
Grief releases that morning beneath the blue ceiling, evaporating as tears from a deep well.
The sentinels greet me when I run out of breath.
When I run out of tears.
When I run.
Their weary fallen arms welcome me into their fold.
The skeletons of bloom salute my courage.
A breath of air rustles their faces and blows against my cheek.
And a voice above the ceiling calls down these words in a whisper:
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me know in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “Oh Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, Prophecy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the word of the Lord to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.
Ezekiel 37: 1-6 ESV
This whispered word beneath the blue ceiling reassures me the bones of the past will be restored into creations bearing new life. La bise of God’s spirit in the wind is my reminder.
