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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TRANSACTIONS IN FIELD THAT'S OVERGROWN: CALL AND RESPONSE WITH MERRITT, by ELEANOR WILNER 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SMALL SELF AND THE LIBERAL SELF by JAMES GALVIN CELSUS AT HADRIAN'S VILLA by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TROY PARK: 5. THE CAT by EDITH SITWELL ECHOES: 6 by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY ON HEARING A LITTLE MUSIC-BOX by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT POETASTER: SONG (4) by BEN JONSON |
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