to move up and down
Bon Iver will always rush to help. He’ll pull over to change a stranger’s tire, he’ll bring coffee and an extra pair of hands when the neighbor’s fence is down. I commented upon this once.
‘I just assume anyone would do the same,’ he said, surprised. ‘Look around you––our world is filled with good people.’
I look through his eyes, and yes: the world is filled with good people who would do anything to help.
‘Spring is a wicked temptress!’ he shouts, shaking his tambourine at the snow.
‘Why are you asleep, Bon Iver?’ I ask, peering through the drawn curtains. Outside, it’s his favorite kind of day: blindingly bright and dripping with melted snow.
‘I’m just resting,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘I’m fixing to be up late, since Lily’s having her foal tonight.’
No one can predict that, I think, but I bring the heat lamps into the barn and freshen up the straw. And sure enough, by dawn Bon Iver is sitting on a bucket, sipping coffee from a thermos and watching as Lily licks her baby’s ears clean.
A late spring snowstorm is a joy and a burden; Bon Iver happily munches a mouthful of flakes from the porch railing, but he fusses over the pussy willow buds and clicks his tongue at the crocuses bending beneath the weight of last night’s drifts.
He says, ‘I can feel their pain and confusion,’ and I see that it’s true, for Bon Iver is a tight little bud longing to grow in the sunshine.
‘I wish I could record your little song,’ Bon Iver says.
‘Me!’ I croak, putting a hand to my throat. Because singing is not my thing, it’s Bon Iver’s; his voice can fly above the lodge pole pines while mine wears boots of lead.
He says, ‘I heard you this morning in the chicken shed.’
‘Chickadee, chickadee,’ I call, as I do each morning while I gently nudge the hens aside, looking for their warm eggs. And he leaps up, shouting, ‘That’s it!’ and hustles me into the studio, where he bribes me with kisses to call invisible chickens for half an hour while downstairs my steel cut oats boil over.
Bon Iver leans in to kiss me, but before he reaches my lips, he spins away and sneezes: one, two, three times.
‘Baby,’ he chokes as tears shine on his cheeks, ‘I smelled all the flowers by the side of the road to find you the sweetest one.’
And from behind his back he hands me a little yellow bloom, its petals bent and stem twisted. I see that he does indeed have a sprinkling of yellow pollen upon his nose.
I put the flower in a teacup and admire it from afar.
Let’s get lost in the woods! he says.
So we pack up some chicken and try.
And we trek through the groves of aspens and thorns and the sun streams down and a magpie caws and we climb a hill and a deer runs off and we share our snack and we kiss for awhile and he braids my hair and we spin around…
and we’re still not lost so we run down the hill and we laugh and we laugh and we laugh and we laugh and suddenly, he cries.
What’s wrong, my love? I ask,
and I touch him all over to find out why.
And he says, it was a fun idea,
but I’ll never be lost when it’s just you and I.
Bon Iver is eating a muffin in the field. He’s sitting among the lambs who are newly born, flipping their long tails around and leaping with joy at being alive. A mother sheep lazily slurps a little black lamb’s haunch, then moves to Bon Iver, licking his flannel and then his beard and sideburns. He tries to remain motionless, but I can see that he is giggling.
‘I’m one of you now,’ he tells a lamb excitedly, and it kicks him and runs away.
HACKED!
Sincerest apologies to all our fans, but it appears boniverotica has been hacked (see below). We are currently working to fix the problem.
- boniverotica
Hey Girl,
I hear you dig musicians with facial hair and feelings. Let me upgrade you.
- RG
