An Old Field Encounter

Photograph by David Noah, Winterville, Georgia

Botanical Garden, Athens, Georgia

October 16, 2010; revised July 2011, September 2014

It was just an old field. I have been back

more than once, perplexed

at how very ordinary in the light

of midafternoon, or morning, 

or the light-not-light of gloaming. It’s gone.

Whatever was is not now. It seems

a shame, the untame rush replaced

by shrug and stolen glance

at time, the slow ride home

for reheated leftovers to sustain

my aging. It was fall

     when I went wandering

blazed paths through pungent hush

of hickory, beech and white oak stands 

to forest edge at right-of-way, cut

straight across the curve of hills where

I stood blinking back the light

     by the sun-splashed shores

     of an old field grown wild

     breaking over asphalt slabs

     which once went somewhere

     beyond the post hole fence

     that vainly holds back green

     swells of sumac and thistle

     tangled in turbulence

     sparkling in the silent roar

            of  a thin place

                   opening

            onto an emerald sea

     in the presence of which

     I would remove my shoes

     wash my soul in sunlight

     and float the timeless warmth

            to a new heaven

                   and a new earth

But that was all and over soon, just slant

of light and insect drone, no still small voice

that could be heard above the buzz
and background trill, so was it somehow up

to me to say out loud what hangs in air?

     All flesh is grass, its beauty as

          the flower of the field

that dies with fall – been said by better

than one who wanted just right then 

no more than now and this sweet earth 

of distant laughter, lovers strolling, 

stoic mother gently holding 

sleek cell phone and squirming child. Right

there beneath the freshening breeze

a shadow passed inside of me:

     You hear your heart

         not that of mine.

I found it best to follow back

the well-worn path that’s cut around.

I did not hear then a voice –

there was no other voice but mine –

just jumbled words set in my mind

like taking sun and sending roots, like

softening ground and healing scars,

flowers dying, weed fields thriving. Who

can say where words come from

but now I really want to know

did Moses ever think to go

back to bush to watch for fire

and hear the holy words again?
He did not deign to verify, 
went down to Egypt, back to reeds, 
to sea, to Sinai, but for me:

What I know I know too well, like

what the ways of science tell,

so some fall soon I will return.

I’ll go back armed with leather bound

field guide to flora, open mind to watch 

weeds. Perhaps I’ll learn their proper names –

the way cool starry night fuzzy top vine

must be known to a branch of botany. Perhaps

I'll catch the roar, and this time listen

to the silence inside.