Hartley Field

And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place . . .
T. S. Eliot

The wind cooled as it crossed the open pond

and drove little waves toward us,

brisk, purposeful waves

that vanished at our feet, such energy

thwarted by so little elevation.

The wind was endless, seamless,

old as the earth.

Insects came

to regard us with favor. I felt them alight,

felt their minute footfalls.

I was a challenge, an Everest . . .

And you, whom I have heard breathe all night,

sigh through the water of sleep

with vestigial gills . . .

A pair of dragonflies drifted past us, silent,

while higher up two bullet-shaped jets

dragged their roars behind them

on unbreakable chains. It seemed a pity

we’d given up the sky to them, but I understand so little.

Perhaps it was necessary.

All our years together—

and not just together. Surely by now

we have the same blood type, the same myopia.

Sometimes I think we’re the same sex,

the one in the middle of man and woman,

born of both as every child is.

The waves came to us, one each heartbeat,

and lay themselves at our feet.

The swelling goes down.

The fever cools.

There, where the Hartleys grew lettuce eighty years ago

bear and beaver, fox and partridge

den and nest and hunt

and are hunted. I wish I had the means

to give all the north back to itself, to let the pines

rise in the hayfield and the lilacs go wild.

But then where would we live?

I wanted that hour with you all winter—

I thought of it while I worked,

before I slept and when I woke,

a time when the tangled would straighten,

when contrition would become benediction:

the positive hour, shining like mica.

At last the wind brought it to us across the pond,

then took it up again, every last minute.

Source: Poetry (August 2001)