POETRY-July 2012
Poem by Nathaniel Bellows
Edited by Gibson Fay-LeBlanc
Artwork by Morgan Cremins

“Field Work”

You found in the pools of your binoculars the living

twin of the painting above your desk. This one alive,

its bright red wings slicing the air, calling out in the

grotto of the pines. Look! you said. I was dozing,

feigning sleep, until your fingers came to trace the

cleft of my neck, tug at my collar, sending a button

spiraling into the grass. All around the birds laughed,

the field unfolded in its golden bolt as we searched

for the tiny thing, now threaded to the meadow. Leave

it, I said. And we would. The sun grew warmer, my

neck would redden—pale red, the color of that bird

in winter, when the hue is dulled for hiding, when

this time would be a memory evoked by that image

above where you work.  Nothing that day had been

lost. The heat, the wind wagging the weeds, a bloom

as white as bone. We pulled off all that had enclosed

us, sent our trappings flying free, if only for that

moment, entrusting it all to that abiding meadow.

_______

Field Work, 2012, colored pencil, micron,
and watercolor, 4″ x 6″

Maine magazine works in conjunction with students at the Maine College of Art. Illustration major Morgan Cremins says of Field Work: “When creating, I felt like I was breathing in the fresh, blue sky, like the sun was beating on the back of my neck.”

Nathaniel Bellows on “Field Work”: “The landscape around my family’s place in midcoast Maine gives me a sense of clarity and humanity that I haven’t experienced anywhere else. ‘Field Work’ celebrates the elusive, transformative power of Maine’s natural environment.”