For the past year, I have carried a small Field Notes book in my back left pocket. It has been used for making notes about livestock, pastures, and to-do lists but also essay theses, notes on a scene, and poems. Some pages are little treasures I look back on, others turn into tinder. Mostly, I carry the book to keep my mind active at idle moments. It is certainly preferable to the small screen that cooks my mind as I scroll. Because these field poems—or notes, or theses—rarely take more than half an hour and are almost never revised, I’ve hesitated to share them. I tend to be very detail-oriented when it comes to my writing, and I understand that is a long process.
Nevertheless, I know that there are many good things that spring forth with little to no obvious preparation—though fertile ground is, of course, years in the making and what comes spontaneously from it may indeed be the best of the good. With that in mind, I’m introducing a monthly installment here titled “Field Poetry,” hopefully reaping something of benefit from the fertile ground I’ve attempted to cultivate. Today, the series begins with two shorter pieces: one poem and one note. I’ve edited the latter with bracketed sentences, but only because it’s desirable for each of us to behold the process. Both pieces still feel more or less unfinished and frustrated, both yield to the unknown of a coming child, both spawned on a short hike just a few days before our son came into the world—which also happened to be Orthodox Holy Week as you might pick up.
Walking
How long must one walk to finally be alone sheltered from the dreary drone of a Master (any one) who cracks the whip of progress floating high as an egret over the meek and mold They say, "Be of good cheer! you would not last another year in those Darker Ages when doctors were merely sages or slaves still rattled their cages we are evolved we are exempt from Death's weary stages" "When," I aloud wonder, "Did the sage turn to loon?" was it when he was sold for the price of a new gadget or gizmo or whatever we say to keep the elderwise(r) from throwing them away. What price did we pay to forget our first love? To leave God to his business in heaven above? To blind our children so they would not see as we let the hands of the devil cast us to sea. "See," they will say, "is what blindness incurs the wrath of God and his uncouth words will not be seen therefore we won't hurt as his hand reduces us back to the dirt." But what of his love? His son on the cross? How could we chalk it all up to, at best, a loss?//
Undue Notes on the Word “Due”
My son is ‘due’ in one week. [I never liked the term, it seemed to reduce life to something] like a package or a hurricane. My father-in-law quipped last week that he was ‘forecasted,’ which at the time I [also] did not prefer but the verb has since grown on me. In one sense, he [c]ould still be a hurricane, but just as likely he could be a ray of sun that I forgot I needed or a soft drizzle to keep me at bay.