Arable
Katharine Towers

“Fields – fields, quite endless” — Charlotte Mew


to climb over a stile and walk onwards through fields – brown or yellow or green – with only the thought of fields in your mind and without a clear path

there will always be more, thinking this as you walk onwards away through oblongs of fields before it is dark

thinking how soon the next? thinking grass or stubble or corn?

feeling change and a sameness – rhythm and shape – your feet feeling difference and boredom of sameness

walking alone through elegant grasses, quickly through tall waving grasses, without thought of beauty or of the beautiful painful

thinking upwards or downwards? thinking how far till nightfall?

feeling sharpness and dampness of grass – dark evening grasses under your feet and soaking your knees – and also the prickle of thistles and nettles

thinking of fields, rhythm and shape, thinking and walking through thistles and nettles and moments of sorrel

walking and walking through fields in the dark, through dark evening grasses – sharpness and dampness – thinking of difference and patterns of sameness, thinking corn or stubble or grass?