I cross a field on my daily walk. In that field I have worn a path. Six months ago I was walking the path on a cold afternoon when suddenly a curtain of snow swept across it off of Puget Sound. The wild grasses were grey and fallen. I was deep in a wintry Robert Frost mood at that time, and I remember thinking of lines from his "Desert Places": "Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast/In a field I looked into going past."
Now, near summer, the grasses in the field are four to five feet high in places. I have to search to find my old path through the swaying stalks. It brings back memories of walking down rustling rows of tall corn in Minnesota when I was young.
Delicate Grasses
Delicate grasses blowing in the wind,
grass out of cracks among tiered seats of stone
where a Greek theatre swarmed with audience,
till Time's door shut upon
the stir, the eloquence.
A hawk waiting above the enormous plain,
lying upon the nothing of the air,
a hawk who turns at some sky-wave or lull
this way, and after there
as dial needles prowl.
Cool water jetting from a drinking fountain
in crag-lands, miles from any peopled spot,
year upon year with its indifferent flow;
sound that is and is not;
the wet stone trodden low.
There is no name for such strong liberation;
I drift their way; I need what their world lends;
then, chilled by one thought further still than those,
I swerve towards life and friends
before the trap-fangs close.
Bernard Spencer, With Luck Lasting (1963).
Peter Christian Skovgaard, "Oat Field" (1843)
Monday, June 13, 2011
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4 comments:
Ooh, I can feel those grasses rustling, cool and green around me...
Where do you find these poems?! Wonderful.
Thanks for the thought, Murgatroyd. I am reminded of Sting's "Fields of Gold" as well -- "the fields of barley."
As always, thank you for stopping by, Mr. Sigler. As for the source of the poems: too much daydreaming amongst books, I fear. As for Bernard Spencer: an unjustly neglected poet who died too young as well.
Thanks again.
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