Lunch hour on my back

The sky aches with blue. Golden light shimmers. A cool breeze pushes through curtains of heat. I'm stretched out under the shelter of a shade tree. The leaves are speaking to each other: it sounds like rain. The grass feels almost cold. They prickle my calves and arms, all those sharp little freshly-cut blades. I want to move, but I don't, I settle into the blades. They bend, forming a green-scented cushion. I cradle the back of my head in my hands and drift along...

And then the men go back to work on the water main.

I can hear them talking just before the machines fire up. Rumbling, and then the earth starts pulsing under me. Thump and scrape as the Caterpillar scoops up the earth. A moment of almost silence and then the clatter of soil into the back of a truck. A brief peace and then the thump and scrape again. Its an interesting rhythm, pounding up through the grass, vibrating me here, where I lay on my back, under the shade of the tree.

I could be upset. I could take it personally. I could consider my lunch break ruined. But I choose to I savor it instead, delving into the earth with my senses, body-surfing the shock-waves. Man can make an awful racket. But he can also make a symphony. It is my listening of it that determines my experience of it.

It is good to be alive.