With Fields
I went to the field to know the field
not one particular field but all fields
having stood in plenty: diversity of weed
and shifting grasses, dried stalks, seeds beyond bursting–
fields past their peaks but also those
newly born with verdant shiny leaves
and all those streaming phases in between
I listened to the field without and within
sensing its breath its heartbeat till
I lay down wondering: what difference
between this field and me? breathing
with a million fields my heart beating now
in tandem as wind swept through my cells,
layers of skin rippling seemingly
wind-like too with a million winds
Oh, how I’d forgotten the oneness from which
I was born – how fields breathed me once
reverberating with each heart beat with a million
fields for a million years back before I’d mindlessly
separated from my body from all fields
as if this field was not once and now me
the wind each heart beat as if earth
didn’t breathe each miraculous
breath
Performance poet, Claire Blotter, represented San Francisco in National Performance Poetry Slams in Boston and Chicago. She has published three poetry chapbooks and teaches writing to children, teenagers and adults in Marin County, California. Read more.
Claire Blotter’s poem “With Fields” was previously published in the Marin Poetry Center Anthology (August, 2021).