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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TRANSACTIONS IN FIELD THAT'S OVERGROWN: CALL AND RESPONSE WITH MERRITT, by             Poem Explanation     Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: It is dusk in the field, uncanny, those calls
Alternate Author Name(s): Wilner, Eleanor Rand


It is dusk in the field, uncanny, those calls,
the way that voices carry just before the air goes dark,
when the light is violet, and the eye is fooled,
just before the moon swims up from the mud
of the pond, to lie on the dark water's silken
skin, a composure that even the slightest breeze
can ruffle -- the moon a splinter of minnows.

The voices have faded with the dusk,
and night has come like a curtain dropped
over the brave show of the day, the bravado
of noon, the fading certainties of afternoon,
the buzz of skeets by four, the sweating of
the ice-filled glass that leaves a silver
ring on the old porch floor, as the heat
of the day wearies, relenting
by degrees, it is then, across those half-lit
fields, we hear the children call: Red Rover, Red Rover . . .
. . . come over, come over . . .
grainy as old film the memory as it goes,
as the field fades like Brigadoon, those
voices bring the dark in with them; what
twilight brought, night swallows back --
and how we ache to break and run, be
caught in those arms again, and, laughing,
fall in the evening grass, feel its damp,
all unaware, distance not yet bred of time,
and hear (shh, don't breathe, listen . . .)
our mothers' voices calling from afar
across the meadow's darkening air.


http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm
Prairie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which
publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the
prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the
campus-based literary journals.





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