Monday, April 25, 2011

THE LAST SUNSET

Ray, the Mayor by unofficial nods, of Rockwell city, Iowa, patrols the city park out behind the corn silos. I happened on him while looking for migrating birds to photograph.

“What-cha doing there, taking pictures for the paper?” He demands in a curt but comical way. “Looking for birds,” I reply and offer my hand to the old gentleman. The air is calm here in the low lands and unusually quiet save for the tweedling rales of mating Spring Peepers.  “Not near as many birds here-abouts as when I was a boy. These here woods used to be full-of-em come spring,” He tells me with watery eyes dreaming of his youth. “It’s all this poison they are putting on the corn to kill the weeds and bugs that’s killing the birds too.  Why, just yesterday I see’d a frog with two heads a-swimming right in this here swamp,"  He points a finger in the direction of green, algae covered water.  "Yes sir, it’s all that damn poison those folks is using to make more corn come from an acre than is natural.”

“How do you think it’ll all end, Ray?” I ask him with straight face concern. “Something happened to the dinosaurs and they was gone, that was millions of years ago and it weren’t thier fault. The peoples here on earth today are hell-bent on wringing ever last drop of goodness out of’er and that’ll be that, we’ll all die of our own hand, it'll be our own fault."
……So it goes.


Should there be a last sunset in my lifetime, I hope it's as lovely as this.

2 comments:

Andy said...

Been reading for sometime and I would like to tell you how much I appreciate your writing style.

Richard Boyd said...

Thanks Andy, it's nice to know someone is watching.