I wake and leave my ears on the bedside table. I place them there for safekeeping while I shower. They curl together, little fleshy shells, exoskeletal, fragile. I peel back the curtains to take a quick peek at the sky, a few dark clouds glowering in the west. The fields stretch in all directions, nothing but grasses and wheat and horizon. I bought this farmhouse five years ago, not to work the land, which belonged to a neighbor, but because my old place in the city was too close to the lake for me to sleep. My ears would twitch and shudder and burn all night, knowing the waves were close. It wasn’t an option to stay. Here my ears love the dirt, like to lay on the ground and press themselves close to its solid comfort. Its little undulations, caused by worms or wind or blades of grass pushing through the surface, hum and rock like a lullaby. Far from water, the earth sings to them. I leave them resting in a blue bowl, cushioned from the crash of each morning’s cleansing. I leave them where they revel in the muffled company of rumpled blankets a bit longer, can avoid the rush and pummel and drip that makes them shudder. I leave them safe and dry, spared from remembering the swell and the swallowing, the surge that once pulled them under. I give them this comfort while I can. I will have to reattach them, and even here, so far from any water, the forecast still says rain.