Edrie

In measuring for the fence I remember my father pacing off the length of a field.

Daddy, are your feet a foot long, I asked, looking down at my own 6 year old nubs

No, he said

But he never came up short or long. The acre was always the acre

Mile after mile he would plow. Lines and turns in the new black soil

I think he still walks the land. Measuring each section. Contemplating what to plant.

Did the farming make him a quiet man, or was he quiet because he farmed. People who work with the land must listen to it, hear its secrets. He was good at knowing each field�s desires. This made him good with people too. He listened and they talked. Talked until they felt that Richard knew everything about them and in knowing them, they knew him. But only the land knows my father. Just as now, he is in tuned to it; interned in it,