Kansas in July

[Mike Handley]

I painted an old fish camp dock many gray hairs ago, its slips all filled with aluminum boats, and called it “The Cows are Lying Down” because the fish don’t bite when the bovines aren’t standing.

 

I don’t know what the hell to expect if the cows are lying with the fishes, but that’s what they were doing when I passed through the Midwest last week.

 

Much of the corn was the color of October, which would’ve been okay except it was July. Many farmers had begun amputating the withered stalks and baling them for the cattle weathering the triple-digit heat in ponds reduced to mud holes.

 

When we arrived at Spirit Lake to greet our fellow writers, the mercury was hovering at 105 degrees, and by the time I’d unloaded the car, my sweat glands were lawn sprinklers without the skika-shika-shika.

 

I was worried I’d made the wrong choice, a terrible mistake, until the breeze came off the lake and reminded me of my first kiss.

 

[Joey Delgado]

Beautiful account of what appeared, at first, to be an uninviting landscape. The heat, the exhausted livestock, the sweat glands like sprinklers without the "shika-shika-shika" (Brilliant, by the way). Then comes the breeze, Kansas is redeemed, and you are in heaven on Earth. Really, really great.  

[bolton carley]

that last line was killer.   and you know i'm a sucker for a bovine reference. :)

[Stephen Torelli]

Nice tale and exceptional painting. And what about those cows?

[Sandra Davies]

No way was the choice ovf venue wrong - best yet by a long long way.   Soul fuel indeed:  your words and the whole weekend.

[Angela]

The shika made me smile, Sir.  I am happy to know the breeze answered your worries.  Lovely painting.

[Teresa]

Love the "...until the breeze came off the lake and reminded me of my first kiss."  Soul fuel.