A Guide to the Field

Steven Dempsey

A Guide to the Field

Through this wild pasture, this mile of strewn grasses,
We walk among seedcrowns
Only half-formed at the beginning of summer
But already growing
Heavier with the burden nothing will harvest
But birds and the weather,
Some (this ryegrass) like caterpillars spinning
Cocoons out of sunlight,
And some (this lavender bluegrass) a waist-high forest
Of slender firtrees,
Still others (cheatgrass, wild barley) plotted like flowerbeds
Under flights and counter-flights
Of swallows and field sparrows. Each blade, each spikelet,
Each glume and awn, each slowly
Stiffening stem, no matter what may come
In the next wind - hail or fire -
Will take its beheading, will give up this year's ghost
With less than a murmur,
And we pass beside them now, taking together
Our first strange steps
On a path that leads us down to its end in water.
Each look, the first.
Each touch of our strange fingers, the first again.
Each movement of our bodies
As strangely startling as what the swallows dare
Skimming the pond, their wingtips
Glancing, glancing again, swept-luminous crescents,
Each act of theirs
As if for us only. They show us ways to turn
Into willing lovers
Not needing to say Yes on this day when all questions,
Even before the asking, 
Having mingled with their answers. Remember winter:
Birds gone, seeming lost,
And the grass lying down once more to pretend one death,
Dried pale and brittle
By a hard-earned hard-learned gift of seeming done
With its life. Love dies and love
Is born at the same heartroots in words once cold
And comfortless as a scattering
Of ashes: All flesh is grass meaning Love lies down
Mortal, immortal.

David Wagoner

 "A Guide to the Field" hits so many sweet spots for me: fields, grasses, swallows, "Yes", questions, the Bible - a few of my favourite things right there. And he's put in the names of the parts of grass, too. It seems to me that the naming things is a kind of poetry. Saying that something is or how it is, is a statement of existence, a calling up, a spell, but one of unveiling rather than enchanting. When Wagoner writes, "We walk among seedcrowns" and then proceeds to list the different grasses - ryegrass, lavender bluegrass, cheatgrass, wild barley - and then even more specifically,  their parts - blade, spikelet, glume, awn, stem - it's like conjuring. In my mind I walk through this field, and the grasses rise up to my inward eye, alive in every particular. As Wagoner describes the field, he also seems to describe himself in a kind of self-portrait as a field of grasses over which the birds soar and dive. By quoting the line "All flesh is grass." he can speak so easily of the fleeting beauties of life and the inevitability of death. But this grass death is not final. "Love dies and love is born at the same heartroots..." A new season will resurrect the field. And if that weren't lovely enough, there's the bit about the swallowplay in the sky and over the surface of the water, showing us how all questions have mingled with their answers. His answer, just like e.e. cummings said over and over too, is "Yes". Yes, yes, and Amen.