Mudhenge

 

 

December 19, 2022

 Greetings from the shepherd,

 I was walking in the late afternoon, with no purpose or ambition except to be there, when I came to this strange tableau.

 The fields were empty.  These are not designed to raise crops, but children.  In other seasons the space is filled with soccer games, clouds of color and movement, and noise, which are some of the ingredients needed for growth.  But in winter they are barren and lonely, transformed into a place for the wind to play, gather speed, stretch out in the open space, and race to the edge of the woods.

 The snow was just deep enough to cover the grass except for a few ambitious strands that fought for attention above the white blanket.  There, in the nearly empty white, there were eleven mounds of earth.  They were so large I had to stop to look.

 They were arranged in an irregular group, nearly a circle, as if a crude replica of Stonehenge.  I have seen groundhogs at work, and if this was their efforts they had grown to a dangerous size, or somehow gained access to tools.

 I was not alone, there was another explorer there to see the mounds.  A ball amidst the earthworks, a cousin in shape.   The snow had filled in around it except for the leeward side where the grass was still visible, a shadow of the wind.   

 It was not a new ball.  Whatever the original color, it had been changed by the sun and seasons to this new, coral-orange-pink shade.  The embossed details had already been made smooth from time and use, an ironic contrast to my own aging.

 The ball seemed to have stopped at the mounds to witness it.  Maybe it was drawn here by the mysterious shapes.  I greeted the ball and inquired about its destination.  The ball remained mute, but I could tell it was embarrassed.  I knew it had wandered further than intended, and now it was stranded.  I bent down and put my hand on it and asked if it wanted to go home.

 A few minute’s walk from that spot is an elementary school, with a playground.  I stood and looked at the shapes where children would climb and swing and jump.  It would be where a ball belonged.  My new companion didn’t disagree. 

 I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and booted the ball into the wind, and it scuffed along the snow, leaving little divots in the white.  It was like a small puppy, bounding in front of me.  I followed its path back toward the school and after a few minutes we met another explorer.  A blue ball.  I suggested that he join us and so the three of us continued on, kicking one then the other in front of me toward the school.

 Then we met another ball.  This one was reddish, and mildly deflated.  We gathered him up in our strange parade, and pushed on, now creating four strange tracks in the snow, uncovering little tufts of grass with our travel.

 And then a basketball.  And then a football.  And another ball, only half filled with air.  Had they all been drawn to the Mudhenge across the snow? As we got closer to the playground I looked across the field and saw other stragglers.  It was silly to run and gather them, but then it seemed silly not to.

 I left the herd of balls and ranged across the fields and picked up the other stragglers, some frozen in place in the snow.  I was heading back with three brave pioneers when I saw in the distance another dark round shape.  Now I was cold, my eyes watering in the winter wind, and I felt ridiculous chasing after these.  I would have been embarrassed having to explain this to someone watching.  (And yet here I am telling you.)  I won’t deny I thought of the parable that didn’t always make sense to me, until I was the lost sheep.  I went after the lone dark circle in the snow.

 I drove my charges across the last of the field and into the schoolyard, looking for a safe place to pen them, out of the wind.  We came around a corner where they would be protected and I edged each of them into the corner, a tiny flock of ovals and rounds, huddling together.

 I walked back across the field, grateful for the wind at my back, trudging across the tracks we’d made to look again at the hills of dirt left on the snow.  As curious as I had been before about the strange shapes, now they seemed common.  Maybe because they drew me to something more interesting.

 Even as I wrote this it struck me as just an ordinary slip of time, hardly interesting enough to share.  And then I considered it from the balls’ perspective, if they have one.  Right now they are gathered together trading stories of their various adventures, and about the strange giant that saved them, and brought them home.  Imagine that.

 Hope this finds you wandering for the sake of wandering,

 

David

 

  

Copyright © 2022  David Smith