Field Work
       

He shows me where to enter the field,
which direction to mow first—

then he gives me forty days of silence,
benign quiet, apart from the tractor,
a pasture where I can recall

all there was, aboard the wide mothership
winter, my first Quaker meeting,
all of us gathered, nothing said, aloud.

Later, in the same hayfield, Believe
tracked out in boot-prints: whomever
leapt into the letter, doubled back

to make one part touch another.
--both instrument and ink,
their whole self, written in snow,

not disappearing ink-- disappearing paper.

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Copyright © 2012 Julia Shipley All rights reserved
from Cutbank
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission