corn for a neighbor

I'm not a farmer. I don't know about soil, feeding a crop field, rotation, harvesting. None of it. But I've lived with corn for a neighbor for quite a few years now. And I've noticed a few things.

It starts out so delicate on so vast an expanse of earth that you wonder if it's not going to make it this year. It always does. Though I'm sure some years the farmer has the same fear and, for him, it really means something.

On a really hot, humid summer morning, the air smells like popcorn. Like a whole county of popped corn . It's familiar and sweet and very odd at the same time.

A walk through a dense growth of corn in late July and August, when it's taller than you, is mysterious and tense. If you had an overactive imagination (not saying I do) you might imagine a mountain lion coming through the rows toward you. And you with nowhere to run.

Corn doesn't do anything to annoy you. Things a city neighor might do: Play loud music late at night. Fight with his wife in the backyard. Shoot fireworks into your pool.

In early morning, it stands quiet, rigid and strong like those British Queen's guards. And nothing you do can distract it from its mission.

You might think of corn as something to eat at a 4th of July picnic. Nothing wrong with that. But when you have corn for a neighbor, and it's dawn, the sun is rising but the corn is so tall all you can see of it is the glow, corn is something to see.