Pickard Field, Brunswick, Maine
for Paul Hazelton, in memoriam
The field was so big
that we mistook it
for a green ocean
and sat our blanket
upon its cushion
of mowed grass
and had our lunch
on the ocean
(rather than by it,
just miles away,
as planned). PB&Js for all,
and the blue sky
and the mystery
of the expansiveness
on which we sat,
upon which we gazed,
expansiveness
in all directions. We felt
lucky, happy, even
big. Paul, who was dying,
rolled his eyes when I
reported back. PB&Js?
The college’s playing fields?
Utter perfection, is that
what you said?
But it was just this kind
of gathering, spontaneous,
modest, a blanket,
a nearby field, sandwiches
simple as all that,
that would have giddied him,
had he been younger then
and well. We were young,
or young enough,
and well in the ways
of those who can’t yet see
how all can change
quick as lightning,
the whole field
crackling, already dry
from the expansive,
expanding,
heat waves to come,
how could we know
this softness,
this cushioned world,
would never last?
Elizabeth Poliner’s books include the poetry collection What You Know in Your Hands (David Robert Books),and the novels Spinning at the Edges (just out from Harper) and As Close to Us as Breathing (Little, Brown & Co.), winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in Fiction. Her poems have appeared in The Sun, The Southern Review, The Hopkins Review, On the Seawall, and Vita Poetica, among other journals.
Header photo by S_Photo, courtesy Shutterstock.
