Stephen Scott Whitaker
How, how, low bells across the field loll.
Loll, low well, I am one thing, not another. Bells
recalling, recalling. Come home sparrow child, sparrow
child. Running run and run, bells swooping up,
up. Up the bells are sounding and sounding
across broad lawns where salt marsh rolls up, rolls in,
rolls on and on like a field into a field under a sky
so blue it hurts to look up. So much. A body
is a body is a swinging door into the cellar
of a house sailing through the dry season
at the edge of marsh where deer tick and crawl
the soy fields for rack and ruin, wild rape grown
to seed a stubborn yellow button in the middle
of a brown coat of crops, tariff rotting orange
and yellow. The way waste happens. The way
a body can turn on you, I’m one thing, not another.
[Check out Stephen Scott Whitaker back porch interview]
