there's a road i commute along frequently which stretches across two towns; just past the town line the forest opens up into a field where the grass grows long and golden in the late summer. in this field, standing where the trees and grass meet, is a transmission tower. it rises out of the grass and its arms jut outward, perpendicular from its metal body. it seems to yearn for the sky above it, its height rivaling that of the trees behind it as it pushes upward.
whenever i drive by it i admire the way its insulators reflect the dying sun, its unfaltering stance in the field. i see its lines stretching across the road like hands interlocking and ask, "what do you connect to? what are you part of?" i think of the way they must sing in storms, when the rain gives them their electrical voice. the water that cascades off its body down to its feet. i wonder if it ever wishes it could move, wrench itself free of its concrete footing, see something other than the same horizon, year after year after year.
and i wonder if it ever feels lonely. if the isolation from those it sees ever creeps beneath its weathered skin. if it ever cries in the way only a thing of metal and wire could, an inorganic blemish on the land, an eyesore as they might say, yet in my glistening eye so beautiful.
i picture walking through that field barefoot on a day in the summertime, the grass silk beneath my feet. i approach the tower slowly; its once intimidating presence seems to soften as i move closer and closer. for the first time i see it in detail: the bolts holding its sheathing together, the dents and scrapes, the longing. i climb onto its footing to stand there, craning my neck to gaze up along its path to the sky. then i touch one hand to its body, and it seems to jolt at the warmth and softness of my skin, unfamiliar yet at once comforting. i move to embrace it, my arms encircling it as I touch my cheek to its cold steel, the chill electric and painful in the way that only metal could be. i close my eyes, "it's been so long, my love."
