Jun 15 21
It was noon on a Sunday in north eastern Bakersfield. From beyond the steering wheel, orderly rows of orange groves ribbed ahead. The road was remarkably straight. It wasn’t exactly a service route but doubtful many used it, apart from those that worked at the orchard. The scene was so humanly arranged, so clean, we were compelled to pull over, perhaps just to cause some sort of ripple.
We walked around and sat on the hood with our feet on the bumper, the silence feeling almost self aware. We lit a cigarette and watched the small clouds dissipate against the columns of trees — gradation versus dispersion. Ahead, the diverging lines of trees and concrete made a sort of pyramid, above which a few melancholic shoulders of the greenhorn mountains could be seen.
Getting hot from the noonday sun, we walked into the shadow of the grove.
About ten trees in we sat down against a trunk, elbows on knees, fixing our gaze on the ground. The sound of bees (or wasps) was spectacular; the scene was wholly ancient. After taking in the ants and all that chaos that isn’t chaos that happens at one’s feet, we looked down the tunnels of foliage. To the right, our car sat like at opening of a cave. To the left, to our astonishment, about ten trees deeper, stood a large white dog — like a Samoyed or white shepherd. We are sure we must have jumped a bit. Its color in the dimness had the starkness of those white horses in Uccello’s paintings. We shared an unsettled gaze before it padded off.
We walked around and sat on the hood with our feet on the bumper, the silence feeling almost self aware. We lit a cigarette and watched the small clouds dissipate against the columns of trees — gradation versus dispersion. Ahead, the diverging lines of trees and concrete made a sort of pyramid, above which a few melancholic shoulders of the greenhorn mountains could be seen.
Getting hot from the noonday sun, we walked into the shadow of the grove.
About ten trees in we sat down against a trunk, elbows on knees, fixing our gaze on the ground. The sound of bees (or wasps) was spectacular; the scene was wholly ancient. After taking in the ants and all that chaos that isn’t chaos that happens at one’s feet, we looked down the tunnels of foliage. To the right, our car sat like at opening of a cave. To the left, to our astonishment, about ten trees deeper, stood a large white dog — like a Samoyed or white shepherd. We are sure we must have jumped a bit. Its color in the dimness had the starkness of those white horses in Uccello’s paintings. We shared an unsettled gaze before it padded off.
Feeling vulnerable and acutely aware that we were on private property we went back to the car. Before getting in we lit another cigarette and looked back down the brown/green grotto, feeling like we had seen an apparition, but knowing that such thoughts are lazy and plot driven as everything is an arrival of wildly specific and bizarrely far-flung materialization.