Nine O'Clock
Heat on the mountains, the morning the whole country stops, and the table where Soil and Peace is worked out on the ground.
Out in the garden early, before the heat finds the bottom of the valley.
Europe's heatwave has climbed the mountains and settled on them. The news gives it to Italy, to the cities. It is here too, in the beds, in the ground under the hands.
Work until the morning turns hot.
Then the bells. Singing after them. And everything stops — the people in the road, the cars, whatever was moving — held for the length of it. The bells end. The road starts again.
Every morning, I'm told. The whole country, the same minute.
The town's ordinary errands — the things that need carrying. A hand where a hand is wanted.
And at a kitchen table, past midnight and into the next morning, the work that does not photograph — what Soil and Peace is, said plainly by the people who would have to live it. Not carried in finished. Worked out here.
Not a thing carried into the valley. A thing worked out at a table in it.
Day 11 — Kompostieren — Soil and Peace
Verkhovyna, Carpathian Mountains, Ukraine
© 2026 Michel Garand | Soil and Peace | CC BY-SA 4.0
stewardship@ubec.network
