What Belongs

White skies belong in Slovakia. I’m driven through the country, making my way to bigger cities and watching the landscape wash past in late march while the skies are white and leaves haven’t yet appeared. Sloping green, that fresh purity of new spring grass, the first real sign of life set against the white, with its skeleton black trees reaching bare branches to the bare empty sky. The fields are damp, left between rainfalls, the sky taking shallow breaths, and everything is quiet.

Disheveled belongs in Slovakia. Walking through villages I see lining every garden a different kind of cheap fencing pushed backwards and forwards by overgrown tomato plants and big dogs with dirtied coats. Some are tall and red, others rusted black, but each is intertwined with gangled green, untamed leaves and yellow flowers reaching to the doormats and up the sides of the houses throwing sunlight to the graying roofs, patched with moss and beetles and laying sleepily in the creases of green Slovak hills.

Canola fields belong in Slovakia. On sunny days, when the blue skies sweep across those hills again, yellow rushes downwards, breaking through fields of grass and bringing the whole country into the sun. After the misted winter and quiet cold of the streets the canola blooms and the landscape erupts into rolling green and yellow. The grapes are planted and village chatas unlocked, windows thrown open, light rays dusting the kitchen floors, and white wine is poured in the garden.

Trains belong. It’s dark outside but my cabin is lighted and I’m lying on my stomach on the middle bunk, my hand out the open window and the thick wind beating against my face and hair. Caroline is with me and I’d never talked to her much before, but that heavy yellow light is holding both of us, and the same sooted cities passing before our eyes. So we talk a little before falling asleep, and I wake periodically to check the time and listen to the wheels take me further and the French woman wrestle with the sheets in the lower bunk and the cabin door slam suddenly against the frame. And next door I hear my friends who have just arrived but I stay where I am, not wanting to miss that same uneasy sound of leaving things behind.