Impossible Harvest

The Closed DoorPsalm 33:18-19

For the tradesman whose phone has gone quiet for nine weeks, this message holds his worth steady while the work is not arriving, with no advice about the trade and no prediction about the next job.

EliasAppalachian repentance

8 min

Nine Weeks of a Quiet Phone

Five Dry Years on the Ridge Road

A Diary I Do Not Recognize

The Prayers I Wrote in a Blue Notebook

Six Winters Since the Plant

The Blessing at the Door

Three Weeks I Have Not Said It

Three Years and a Decade

Nine Weeks of a Quiet Phone

Four Tins Left on the Shelf

The First Month in the Job I Waited For

The Place I Still Set

The Trolley at Four in the Morning

The House on the Pike Road

The Fourteenth No

The Small Thing in the Drawer

Two Hundred Eighty-Six Dollars by Friday

Nine People for Three Years

Thursday at the Test Center

The Prayer We Stopped Saying Out Loud

The Boy the Staff Room Has Written Off

Twenty Years With the Same Page

The Year the Fields Finally Came In

The Seventh Winter in the Rented Room

Standing in the Hallway

Wednesday at the Hospital

The Shower on Saturday

Eight Years and One Table

The Christening in the Cold Church

The Final Two, Twice

Eleven Years and Then a Title

The Garden They Are Going to Build On

They Ask at Every Gathering

Four Years Written in Blue Ink

Ten Years of Sunday Mornings

Nine Years and No Wage

The Eleven Years I Cannot Explain Away

The Collection on Saturday

One Room, Fifth Year

The Certificate in the Bottom of the Bag

Fifth Year on the List

Forty-Two, and a Degree

The Letter About the Rent

The Table You Keep Setting

The Deposit Due Friday

The Last Week of the Month

The Notice With Tuesday On It

Two Jobs and No Bottom

The Uniform List in August

Between Things

The Announcement You Muted

The Exam I Have Failed Twice

The Sixth Year of Wednesdays

Answered in the Twentieth Year

Eleven People and a Kettle

Still in the Room I Grew Up In

The Tank at a Quarter

Four People on a Tuesday Night

Counted Four Times

Under the Unchanged Ground

Thirty, and a Cardboard Hat

Nothing Above the Soil

The Prescription and the Bus Fare

The Job I Could Not Stay In

The Letter I Sent in April

Everyone Else's Second

The Bottles Beside the Old Calendar

Four Years of Saying Fine

The Keys in My Hand and I Cried

The Prayer I Prayed Over a Blanket

The Third Year of the Appeal

You Meant It, and It Cost You

Nobody Would Ever Know

The Shoes Waiting by the Door

The End of What They Can Offer

Six Years and He Walked In

The Month Nobody Knew About

The Form Due Monday

While We Have the Van

Overqualified, Again