In the Field

   by Susan Stevens


On our hands and knees, scrambling
for beads and the antiquity
of our own tradition:
Could it ever happen like this?

Dear, the lessons I could learn
in this position--ritual advance 
and retreat, precursor of sex,
telescoped views, surrender
for once and all of hubris.

Shards lie scattered like pieced
repetitions of words,
symbols of our own primitive
and tricky distance.

You sketch the site while
my mind sketches your love of context.
We note the clouds turning, but moreso
the turning of us, one to the other.
Just how much distance can one take?
Is this how it can happen?

In the field we sift 
this sand in counterpoint, 
our words winnowing what is hard
and bright from the rubble.

On the ride back, dialectics
steer us who have now gone mad
for provocation...I question you then,
relentless as a tutor in his hard
pitiless way.  Could it ever take place like this?