The Field Poem by michael hogan

There are mornings when the sound of rain on the roof
is as sorrowful as lost children
and the sky closes over your life without mercy.
To start the day requires more concentrated attention
than you feel capable of:
a reaching back to old silences
and even more dangerous loneliness
of the prelapsarian adolescent
playing in the garden
the cuffs of corduroys wet from the grass
the dog with burrs on her coat
the mother hermetically sealed
in her Fifties harness of housework and self-importance
the father always gone.
There the boy learned everything
there was to know of distance
both terrible and clear
the long afternoons of summer’s emptiness
the open field beyond, in which anything could appear:
a field mouse, a sunflower
a man in a black coat beckoning.