Fields

WHEN NATURE HEARD ME AND I FOUND HIM

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

Husky voice cribs my troubling thought.

I turn with fear hard on heel at the far end
of an ancient lane.

I borrowed these footsteps, I reply
to the open side of a ploughed field where wires allow
random thoughts to teleport across the sky.

This is not your path. This was the thought in my head
this voice had entered and uncovered and stolen.

Stolen? It asked.

You’re right, I continued, I forgot your presence
in too many cites of crushing television cables. This is not my path-
it is ours to share.

I remember now, can see how truth befalls in the darkness
these recent weeks of stillness seem to be resetting
an imbalance.

Husky voice returns to a tweet, but this time
it is a tweet that is sung in the trees.

   

All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly

FIELDS OF GOLD

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Gold grows in many ways-
like how the soil can be pressed with seed,
how a daisy decorates that which has been deserted,
how the sun burns at a safe distance
or at least it did, once.
All is relative, now, to time-
I didn’t know what ozone meant as a boy,
or Wifi or gluten free or panic or pandemic
but there were days when I could have cradled distancing
when school corridors closed in too tight
on skin that hadn’t been taught tough.
Gold grows in many ways
as we find a new rhythm of crossing over into fields
once forgotten where daises make waves instead of chains
and farmers strive to find fortune
for us all in fields of food.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

IN THE PLACE OF WHAT ONCE STOOD

/ deuxiemepeau / 4 Comments

 

Robin rummages in the rushes,
upon rock she roots out traces
of all that once was, tuts at all
that has changed and all that hasn’t.

Robin rummages in the rushes,
bright spark- but fast to flight.
She comes to call and comprehend
but never comes when she is called.

A fluttering of fine feathers
on front of old familiar fields
where the tracks have been pulled,
where all prints have been ploughed

but there are marks, still- fine folds
where the grass leans in, just so,
in suggestion of what once stood
in its way, of what once stood

in the field, beyond the rushes,
just a recall beyond the rock
where robin comes to rummage.

 

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

FIELDS OF HINDSIGHT

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

There are fields beyond the trees,
fertile fields never turned or sewn,
ploughed or pillaged, lands his course
never crossed. If he had hindsight
would he still till the same lands,
plant the same roots, seek substance
in the same sunlight, find a farmer’s
favour with the familiar falling rain?
If he had hindsight would he seek
solace in the same fire that favoured him
in winter, in those fantastical flames
that nourished him, revived him,
that thawed his sorrow, caressed him
to comfort? There is music
in other rooms, alive on other keys
and strings he never played,
he never knew, he never cared for
or considered. If he had hindsight
would he still sing the same song,
words that were whispered to him,
music that made him, moulded him,
find reason in the same rhythm,
character in the same chorus?
If he had hindsight what use
could it be, what peace could it bring,
what would it make of him,
how would it change who he was,
who he loved and all he has still to be?
There are fields beyond the trees,
fertile fields never turned or taken,
their grass has other offerings,
their leaves all sway to other sounds,
their fortunes spark other interests,
there is music in other rooms,
alive on keys and strings, tunes
of other tenors, sounds from other
singers, they are not his sounds,
just as they are not his fields,
they have not made him,
will not tempt him, they can never
change him; hindsight is to hopeless
as happiness is to hopeful.

All Words and Photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Photograph taken just outside of Lisbon, Portugal.