Ditch and Sky

"The Ditch and the Sky" is a profound and powerful rural fable. By the dry ditch, a son who was tired of wandering and a father who was silently clearing the water started a fierce inquiry into the nature of existence because of a dying fish and a broken net. The novel explores the eternal struggle between the limited destiny symbolized by the "ditch" and the infinite possibilities represented by the "sky" in a very tense writing style. It does not provide an illusory escape, but reveals a sober and tenacious survival wisdom: true transcendence begins in the "gully" claimed, taking the dredging and widening as one's own responsibility, and creating and conveying the meaning of life in specific and subtle labor and love.