Field

The trees kept back by a kind of police barrier.
Crowd control. Only shadows can get in
if they prostrate themselves and agree to go along
with the sun's intentions, which can be a nice career.

Here, where tripods feel their awkwardness—
what with the sun fondling the nubby grass—
knowledge has a habit of running off in rills,
all those Roman words, as the cricket shrills

an alarm, one that's winding down by bits,
even gasping, part of a chorus of clocks
stunned by the cold and giving the field tinnitus.
Having shed so many eclipses and taken stock

of so much weather, the field can afford to decline,
like a noun—campus—that's seen a more glorious time.

Copyright © 2005 K. E. Duffin All rights reserved
from Poet Lore
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission