The Soil Hungers

Journal Entry – December 6, 1871

He spoke again tonight — the stranger, though he feels less like a stranger now than the people sleeping under my roof.

His voice drifted from the rafters, from the spaces between the boards, from the dim edges of candlelight.

He told me the lake was “a good beginning.”

He told me the soil hungers too.

I felt the earth shift under my feet near the orchard — not violently, but softly, like the ground sighing after a long sleep. The roots trembled. The snow around the trees thinned in a perfect circle at my feet.

When I knelt and pressed my palm to the earth, something warm answered from below.

Like breath.

I think the soil has been waiting a long time.