Johnny Wraith Stories

As he tills the earth, plow guided straight and churning it up into rows, the broad back of an old ox rippling under the sun, moving slowly but never pausing in rhythm, the old farmer sings, and he still sings today, wherever you might find him, wherever the fields are being prepared for yet another season’s birth and growth.

“Caelum,
Lord of the Four Winds, Heaven, and Sky.
Once shining forth from your throne
Between the milky pillars.
You have become the Four Winds
And are among us, down below.
The air we breathe
Always with us.
Thank you for the sacrifice
Of Heaven and Sky.
Praise the firmament’s dark places.
Amen.”

Whenever the plow turns up the rows for the season’s birth and growth, the exposed richness, the blackness of the soil, manifests the dust of many things crumbled, joined together, and offered to the earth. It is the feathers and hollow bones of birds that have fallen from the heights. It is the excrement of beasts and what the fishes eat, scattered by the farmer’s hand, stirred into the fields.

So he sings as he tills the earth, his plow guided straight and churning it up into rows. The broad back of an old ox is rippling under the sun, moving slowly but never pausing in rhythm.