crop circles on the hill

the red machine whirls and struggles.
fighting each blade of grass till each submits.
billows of pollen, dust, and polution waft into the air, flowing up, up, up into the hazy blue sky.
the man on the mower wears an old cap, sporty shades, the pride of a hard-workers tan. he cuts the grass like the professional he is. i don't know the man, i'll probably never meet the man, but i admire his work, his skill, his bread-winning forte. the hill looks great. and the air smells like the onions he's chopped up beneath his angry blades.

i sit on the half-picnic table, avoiding a paper, reading Saturday, and enjoying the amazing spring essence around me. there are scribbbles and cuts on the bench/table. most of these people are gone. gone into real life, gone into a separate part of campus; just gone.

as i contemplate these things, these natural things, these material and inconsequential things, i wonder what it means to be post-modern. i wonder what will happen to this bench when i'm long graduated. i wonder what will happen when the hill is covered in crab grass and new students in the fall, i wonder if anyone will ever read this blog. and i wonder... when it's all gone. when there is no blogspot.com, when there is no OBU, when there is no bench for us to sit on and enjoy the outside air. what will happen? what will come next? is there anything next? surely, an afterlife awaits me. filled with God's presence and a multitude of Christ-followers. but just the same... what will happen when the "joys" and "blessings" and the beauty of this world pass away? what will we have left?

will we simply have crop-circles in lawns? fallen branches from trees? self-centered theory? blankness? hazy skies?

to contemplate is post-modern, to wonder at what comes next is essential. but to reflect, apply, and change based on these contemplations... what is that? where are we now?

maybe Braum's frozen yogurt will reveal this to me.