I walked through a far field

©  Steve King  2013

All rights reserved

I walked through the farthest field,

where winds rose and long grass bowed.

It would be too much to assume for myself

a solitary power that would move the winds and grass;

a power to call spirits of earth and sky

out from age-long slumbers.

I say that if there are spirits still, they must wait—

withholding sky-borne charms and earthy nods—

and slumber on, imagining better days

to yield a truer prophet,

a shaman or a seer

to utter, even blind, for them.

It is only the least of breeze,

born of the distant sun,

that stirs long grass,

touching all the things that have no care

for great spirits and ages and airs;

a hovering beat that will not sing

until that day when spirits

must gather for real, or not ever;

when spirits might bring lightning

to invest a new waiting dawn.

No saints nor prophets on the path,

shamans or seers to invoke;

though the winds do seem

to whisper in tongues

upon indifferent ears;

though grasses still bow from afar.

For now, the winds and grass,

and those who merely walk,

are caught up surely in the old slow dance:

restless and unready all at once,

glad for something, if only new days,

moving as those tremors move,

that ripple through the patient spirits’ dreams.