Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EPISTLE TO THE FIELD IN ELDRED, PENNSYLVANIA, by MARGARET FERGUSON GIBSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EPISTLE TO THE FIELD IN ELDRED, PENNSYLVANIA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I must tell you now what I didn't need to say before, our flesh
Alternate Author Name(s): Gibson, Margaret


I must tell you now what I didn't need to say before, our flesh so close
we met in the blackberry blood on my tongue,
in the burning brand of sun on my back, in the shadows of high roiling clouds
nomadic,

your body and mine wild lace and silver rod, heal-all and everlasting,
the sweet, mournful train whistle far down the valley
a love cry lifting from us.
Then morning, tunnels of mist
in the hollows and over the coils of the river, red sun rising
orchid and mango, a gradual gold,

the whole body of the field riding that arc of awakening light, at the crest
the echoing cry of the harrier above low nests and thickets
and over the margins of the hills,
until there was blue haze,
a dusk of deer, the vesper chorus of crows in the locust,
a last chirring of crickets -- simply nothing more to ask for,

but there, beyond the orchard of wild apples, in a covert of beechwood
a wood thrush, rising and falling, watery and night-silver song,
as if to confirm that prayer and praise
spring from the same root
and river of milk. Your wild provenance

goes deeper; no words can touch it. I could spread my length to yours,
immersed in your coverlet of deer tongue and rue, whispering --
years of this -- and come no nearer your mystery.

Yesterday I stumbled on bones, a leathery claw, a shawl of softly splayed
gray-and-brown-speckled feathers.
Steady and clear,
I felt no pain, made no promises. I have been prodigal enough with promise and
vow.
No, this was different -- I simply took it in.

I have eaten your apples, red-fleshed and sweet, or green and hawk-eyed, so sour
I squint,
harvested wild flowers and berries, the summer-ripe moon,
roaming hill pastures rife with hawthorn, bracken fern, and bramble
or lush with aster and meadowsweet.
I've washed after love
in water drawn down from a spring deeply burrowed in your side,
drunk from the dipper hung north on a night hook of sky.

As close as breath, as close as death, you are in me, as the fossil prints of
shells
lie snug in the shale of your rib cage and ridges.
Let them open my body when I'm dead --
they'll find in me
rust and gold, mint ridge and river-bottom greens, a scent of rain
sweeter than perfume or musk. They'll find bindweed and mist,
a spaciousness I have called your presence, as your silence is voice.

They'll find hill and field, fruit trees flooded with the surf of starred
blooms,
autumn's mourning cloaks and monarchs, and maples so gold
they seem a tumult of goldfinch anchored, then off in a flash of light, flying,
flown.

Etched more deeply than any mark of father and mother, in me they will find you
and know that all my days you followed me, that all the long nights I was
faithful.

To you I came like the wild hart thirsting.
Let us go forth into the field, it is written. There I will give you my
love.







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