I went to the field to know the field
not just 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: Is there any difference
between me and this field? breathing
with a million fields my heart beating now
in tandem with them all as wind swept over
cells, layers of my 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 and back before I’d separated
from my own body from all fields as I had walked
mindlessly as if this field were not once and
now my body the wind each heart beat
as if earth doesn’t breathe
each miraculous
breath
This poem first appeared in the Plant-Human Quarterly.
—
Claire Blotter has published three chapbooks and has been reading her new poetry collection, Expanding.Water.Ways., along U.S. waterways threatened by a 2023 Supreme Court decision. She represented San Francisco in National Poetry Slams in Boston and Chicago and has taught poetry writing and performance at San Francisco State University, Dominican University and the College of Marin. She currently teaches poetry writing in the California Poets in the Schools Program in Marin County, California.
