The Field Which Had Been a Meadow Once, and: Epicurus

The Field Which Had Been a Meadow Once, and: Epicurus John James (bio) The Field Which Had Been a Meadow Once Gently the cherryblossoms shake they shake. The limbsbend this way &the flowers do not return.They revolutein ion air. It lifts itlifts. The dirt is callous now.Desiccated sothat when I lookout over the plainwhat registers is a palimpsestof dried foliage, phantomicstumps of withered oaksemerging likesheared corn from the furrows& the flat, uneven ashwhere grapevines used to be.Often I am permitted.The oak trees lose their form.Often I am permittedto project this image.Barn swallows swirl. Theylift they—Lifeexpands, absorbs. It tendsin directionsalmost infinite. (In sunkgutters of abandoned houses,in breaks between concrete squares.)Often I return tothis field which had beena meadow once, whichlike a mine in the mindrases the eternal pastureI still call home. My body [End Page 8] ages now. The grassblows east toward the sourceof the sun. In ion air it lifts. It isno dream. Still the saplingsusher from the uneven earth.Still the worm turns.The wind still moves in concertwith the few shaking leaves, which stillphotosynthesize in thisunmoving afternoon. [End Page 9] Epicurus died of kidney stonesafter an illness of fourteen days.According to Hermippushe climbed into a bronze bath,requested wine, and "tossed it back."He soaked his legs and, sated,watched soap amass in beady rivuletsacross his limbs and hardened chest,traced on his thigh an arrow-shaped scar which, in the narrow light,called to mind Ulysses. Nothingcomes into being from what is not.The totality of things has always beenjust as it is now. His kidney swelledto the size of a balloon. Body and void,widening void. This was a good death.Sudden fissure in the wire of the systemof filtration. Rupture in the soul'smachine. A perfect, terrifying simulacrumof another ordinary wound. [End Page 10] John James John James is the author of The Milk Hours (Milkweed, 2019), selected by Henri Cole for the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, as well as two chapbooks, most recently Winter, Glossolalia (Black Spring, 2022). His poems appear in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, PEN Poetry Series, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His work has been supported by the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, the Academy of American Poets, and the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University. He holds an MFA from Columbia and is completing a PhD in English at the University of California, Berkeley. Copyright © 2023 Middlebury College