The grass on the field berm hasn't completely dried. When stepped on, it gives beneath the soles, sinking into a thin layer of damp. Left over from last night's rain, it seeped into the soil, then was slowly drawn back out by the morning sun, becoming a stuffy breath of air touched with a green-earth smell.
The path is narrow. The rice on either side has already begun heading out, the tips of the heads drooping slightly, as if their own weight has made them tired. The wind comes from far away, passing first through that broad stretch of green before reaching the feet, already carrying the warmth of the rice leaves.
No one walks this path.
Or rather, the people who walk it don't need a reason. They're not trying to get anywhere. Their feet simply remember the way. On the left is the irrigation ditch, shallow and soundless, with light occasionally falling into it, breaking into a few pieces before the water carries them away. On the right is someone else's field. The rice seedlings are a little shorter than these, and their color is paler. They were probably transplanted a few days late.
Summer light comes down all at once. Unlike spring, when it still leaks through gaps in the clouds, one beam after another. Summer has no gaps. The sky shines straight down, so bright that even the shadows are short, tucked beneath the feet as if afraid to go far.
The smell of the earth is strongest in the afternoon. It's not foul. It's thick. As if many seasons have been stacked together and opened up beneath the sun, releasing themselves layer by layer. There's last autumn's burned straw in it, the deep coolness turned up when the soil was tilled in winter, the softness soaked through again and again by spring rain, and finally the present—summer tightening, pressing down, and baking it all into this firm, slightly cracked ground beneath the feet.
At the far end of the field stands a tree. Not tall. Its trunk and branches have grown crooked, and its shade isn't broad, just enough room for one person to stand. When standing there, the wind comes from behind, crossing the whole field and bringing all its smells here together.
Then it stops.
It isn't the wind that stops. I do. Standing there, I look at the path I came by, at the rice heads, the irrigation ditch, and someone else's field, at the hazy rooftops in the distance and the mountains farther still. Nothing has changed. This land went on like this when I wasn't here. Transplanting, heading out, filling grain, harvest, then starting over. It waits for no one and sends no one off.
And yet, standing there, I suddenly feel that the things I've been carrying pressed against my chest—all those things that are hard to explain, heavy, with nowhere I know to put them—might be able to rest here. Not thrown away. Set down. Like handing something to someone who will never ask why.
The earth doesn't ask.
It simply takes them in.
The wind comes again, this time from the front, carrying coolness from beyond the mountains. The sun is still fierce, but standing beneath the shade, I suddenly feel that summer isn't so heavy after all. Or rather, the weight is still there. I'm just a little lighter.
The cracks in the soil beneath my feet look as if they've been there for a very long time. Maybe tomorrow's rain will close them up. Then they'll crack open again. Then close again.
When I turn and walk back, the mud on the soles has dried, turning a pale gray-white and clinging to the edges of my shoes. It's fine to carry it along. Let it be something this land has given me, something that doesn't need to be spoken.