Selections from THE FIELD

how do we continue using words when numbers accumulate what does it mean to say it is just a number if you stand in the field behind the house there are no shadow steps there is no ghost chimney yet there is a sense of it having an unknowable past before the field was ours we lived in the house the man who owned it kept steers they would wander into our yard we heard having steers was his dream we thought what a strange dream people without steers romanticize having steers he would stand in the field gazing at them grazing they would wander into his own yard and trample the flowers his wife lost patience and told him to get rid of them he was taking up too much space he moved to take up more space somewhere else we do not know if he has steers we bought the field we are taking up too much space it is not easy to maintain the field we
wanted to feel safer no one could burn or shoot or build or have steers behind our house we were spared the sight of other humans living we have begun to romanticize not having the field in the same way we thought having the field would make us safe it would make life better now the field seems to conceal treachery in the form of taking up labor and time in the form of living things that could hurt us we have all already been hurt by creatures that live in the field can you sequester the things that could harm you in a place where you will never encounter them again though they hurt us for reasons having to do with survival territory or fear gratuitous brutality
does not exist among the beings that live in the field they bite us out of hunger they sting us if we threaten to prevent them from doing what they must if we swat or smash underfoot they attack to protect their young they warn us off they distract us from the burrows and dens which hold their whole earth what will we do without the field with the time we spent mowing will we have time to think will we spend it worrying about our children or our mothers making a collection of reasons they have not responded not getting a response is the same as not reaching if we do not try we will not fail there is limited time left as we continue to write and bury what we write with the buried stuffed toys in the field the lines interrupted in a way that allows us to consider a sentence veering off in another direction or continuing on the trajectory it was already on walking to the corner of the field was it always this way was it different when time unfolded patiently now it is urgent numbers accumulate only echos will remain where the field used to be

standing at the edge of a sea evokes a sense of leaving one past and returning to another past I used to imagine watching a storm approach over the lake from a high story no horizon in sight electricity scissoring to the water lightning lighting up the surface waves thundering heavy and high this childish romanticized version of urban life has been revised by experience there is something to be said for not knowing what approaches the coldness of a minimalist building will not appeal over time gray featureless columns of windows hallways filled with simmering suspicions rows of doors installed with tiny glass domes inlanders romanticize coasts as if the presence of water indicates luxury we travel there on our vacations to gaze upon it there are obstacles to traveling to look at the water and obstacles when I look out my window now it looks out on the field behind the house only one time did I see a coyote standing in the back of the field looking at me I have seen other coyotes but they were never looking at me what would we see if we looked out our window over the lake people we know think it was a strange decision not to live in town they may even look down on us we are only ten minutes from town but some visitors have been known to pack coolers just to get through the trip to our house they ask us if it rained last night where we live ten minutes from where they live once you survive enough years do you no longer care where you are in relation to other people socially I hurt someone once without meaning to it did not make me feel victorious I was in an elevator at work with a woman I did not know well but of whom I never had a good impression she behaved in an icy and superior way I had seen her the week before at a party for a couple who were getting married the woman was important to the bride she was a college professor with whom the bride had studied we chatted about the couple I mentioned attending the wedding ceremony itself and it being lovely her face deflated and she said I see she clearly had not been invited alas I think deep down that I brought up the wedding on purpose because of her frosty manner I derived no pleasure from watching her face collapse with the pain of feeling snubbed people romanticize living near the water so if you live near water you are in the position of telling people you live near water and this might in some people inspire competitiveness through their trying to demonstrate to you that their lives are better than yours despite their not living near water what most people know on some level is that there is no truly safe place if you live near water water might wash you away

a recluse walks into a field contemplating the concept of social withdrawal and is consumed by pines and weeds will people save you the recluse wonders people being beings who hurt each other for reasons not having to do with hunger or survival a recluse imagines donating their shoes but disappearing into the stand of weeds and pines in the middle of the field is not always a permanent state people might save you the field is bordered on all sides by time a recluse may still need shoes a recluse may emerge from the pines and weeds purified as if by fire charged as if having at last fed the need for solitude and replacing it with a need for other people we thought the field was all we needed but we may come to think we should not need the field we need other people if the state of withdrawal is a prelude to being no longer of this world if it is social death as precursor to not needing other people that is different who would want to grasp the notion of their own nonexistence so fully as to give away all of their shoes the path does not appear finite that which makes it finite cannot be seen winding its way through the hills the question of infinity arises again the meaning of the word never is elusive in the human mind in its current state of evolution never cannot be known some nevers feel better than others what if the recluse never reached the borders of the field what time is the far border by the light pole that was felled in the storm the house cast in darkness and silence but for the snapping limbs time stopped it was as if it would never begin again to begin again the recluse circles the field snaking over the field as if the need for solitude will never be fed there is no never what time is the near border of the field beyond which shouting children are transmitting the stringy waves of their voices over the line between mowed and unmowed grass a crescendo decrescendo vibrato voice human and high slipping through the strings and needles as if to say do not be consumed by the pines and weeds as if we want to reach each other to be alive is to not be alone stop moving toward the pines listen to the summer brood of cicadas blanketing all the other sounds they are a symphony of living strings not being alone overspreading the field with a sentence in another language a tuneless chorus chanting a collective hymn we do not have much time we need to find each other the haze you see rising in the bluestem is me the swaying of the pink is me it is as if it will never end but it will end when it ends there will be other voices you will hear them put on your shoes