MARCH MORNING, 1944
by JOHN FIELD
Today I remember it all
The weather's impeccable manners
Sun running a mild temperature
Despite the calendar
Wind out of breath
Calm as a grave
And last week’s snow
A slushy rash on the ground
Once, but no longer white
Above me God's huge blue
Wide open mouth
Eating angel-food cake
While a chorus of birds
Recite proverbs: "Believe!
Believe! Believe!" they squawk
How could I not?
Suddenly silence supreme
And the world wonderfully, perfectly
All to myself
Accidentally happened on
Instead of sought
Streets still as a photograph
Nobody out and about
As I cross the West Side Bridge
The hard river beneath me
Lets out a groan
Each time a new crack appears
In its translucent skin
Then gives up on winter altogether
And splits apart
Into a giant jigsaw puzzle
Which can't quite fit itself
Back together
As it floats downstream
Amazing how a little violence
Settles the heart
Of a ten-year-old boy
Wandering his way
Through the long unhurried
Diligence of childhood
2013
A Night at the Both/And Club
(Remembering Bill Evans)
by JOHN FIELD
The expression on Bill's face
As he hunches over the keyboard,
Seeds of ideas germinating in his fingertips
Ready to sprout. A ghost's heartbeat
Accompanies him on the black keys.
Plays Jade Visions like a Jesuit monk
Saying his prayers on the piano keys
With his eyes closed.
Miraculously other worldly
The strangeness of this song
A shadow of Bill's deepest self.
After the applause dies down he executes
A few ominous notes to let us know
He's got a love affair's death sentence on his brain
Then heightens our morbid expectations unbearably
By raising his hands above the keyboard
And holding them there--as if unaware
Of how much blood to haunt lament or let,
A pause which warns us to use our darkness well
Because it really gets bad Round Midnight.
Seconds later his fingers swoop down
And remind our nerves and guts and skin
Of everything we'd forgotten about the blues.
Oh futile hope! we sigh. During intermission
We order drinks but nothing helps.
Begins his second set by lighting a cigarette
And screwing his right eye shut
Against the smoke. Then plays let's pretend
With Alice in Wonderland,
An almost forgotten Disney tune
Soft as nostalgia with delicate bones
And a spine like a flower.
Turns this twinkling confection
With tiny bells ringing
Into a swinging Lobster Quadrille
Light on its feet but mad as a Hatter,
Reality so far away by now
That nothing's the same anymore,
Not even tomorrow. It should happen to you.
2013
SHEPHERDS WOULD KNOW ABOUT STARS
by LUCILLE HAMILTON
Shepherds would know about stars,
the fixed ones and the wanderers.
Over the years,
they would have become familiar with
conjunctions and comets,
and,
what with the long days of tedium,
would have ascribed stories
to the clusters or certain patterns -
how Orion was a great hunter and
that the Dipper was a sign of True North
The night sky would be a guide
to another world,
bigger in meaning
but like our own.
So, a bright star would have caught their attention;
everyone was looking for omens for good
in those days.
The shepherds would be no exception
out in the cold fields at night
with their sleeping sheep safely guarded.
Don't you think, in the night’s quiet
they would have heard an angel
coming down to tell them things?
2013
THE GREAT HUNTER
by LUCILLE HAMILTON
This is the season when the Great Hunter wheels above in the sky, taking his antique, night's path across the heavens.
Darkness settles in with the evening frost, and the sun sets early,
a fiery farewell, as it heads out of sight.
We are left without light;
the nights of winters are darker for the cold
and the early hour of their onset.
We feel confused by the sun's loss,
not only for its absent warmth,
but also for having taken its beauty for granted.
It's as though winter
leaves us without compass;
we have to start all over again in a new way of being
in this season of cold comfort and primitive dark.
2013
THE MOON IN ITS LAST QUARTER
by LUCILLE HAMILTON
The moon in its last quarter,
cradles itself on the surrounding hill
before
plunging out
towards Australia.
Such a long journey
is only possible
because
it survives adoration.
2013
IMAGINING THE PRAIRIE
by LUCILLE HAMILTON
Have you seen the prairie,
its opulent spread of grass
sprawling to the vanishing point
beneath a sincere and remote blue sky
that holds its hat in its hands each morning on arrival
in respect for the magnificence below.
That would be the spring and summer months
when the greens of one or more crops are growing
in a vast expanse of abundant grains.
Come late summer and the autumn
colors spill out into a patchwork quilt of yellow, reds
and browns
before the cold winter comes down from the north.
The silence is profound,
except for the heard, driving wind which makes each
and any building a sought-out refuge in which to take some
shallow comfort.
The prairie bred strong people.
It had to, in this land, flat as a pancake,
open, available to whatever winds, and rains and storms
decide will happen.
2013
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