A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

In My Backyard
by Richard Wing
February 14, 2007

The mountain rises, in my backyard, following Barr's trail, the cog, and the highway to reach its own peak, rocks and trees and shadows twisting and turning as the trails and rails and roads twist and turn, climbing upward.

By morning, the moon slips from the sky down the back slope of the mountain to rest there, stars disappearing one by one unnoticed as the sky lightens with the moon's gliding down and out of sight. And at day's end, the sun follows the moon's same path, turning blue to orange to red to midnight, stars returning, one by one, unnoticed.

In my yard, I sit now, void of sounds I remember from an earlier, younger time, the soft sounds of crickets' chirp and night bird calls and deer walking softly through the tall grass, coyotes barking, rabbits hopping briskly, almost soundlessly by. Now I sit in the light of my neighbor's house, the sounds of modern man progressing, intruding, decibels rising, shouting across the little space fenced in as 'mine.'

But in my backyard, the mountain still rises and the moon slips down the back slope, pulling the sun behind it and the stars disappear, reappear, one by one unnoticed except by those of us sitting in the backyard, watching and waiting, and remembering.

About the author:
I'm currently a displaced person, exiled from Maine to live in Colorado, the next best thing to home though. To pass the time, I teach high school English and do a little writing, a little poetry and non-fiction, when I can.