Poem of the Week: A Journey, by Edward Field

Sorry I've been away for a bit. I've got quite a build-up of poems, so I might post a few in the coming day or two. Enjoy them.

This week's poem was worth waiting three weeks for - trust me! Edward Field is yet another American poet. (I just seem to gravitate to American poets on this blog, don't I!) This poem is an amazing poem about travelling, and I read it on the train the other day and I too felt like crying. One of the beauties of poetry is the magical moment when the poem intersects with the reader's reality, either present or in memory. I hope this poem speaks to you too. It's simply beautiful.



A Journey - Edward Field

When he got up that morning everything was different:
He enjoyed the bright spring day
But he did not realize it exactly, he just enjoyed it.

And walking down the street to the railroad station
Past magnolia trees with dying flowers like old socks
It was a long time since he had breathed so simply.

Tears filled his eyes and it felt good
But he held them back
Because men didn't walk around crying in that town.

Waiting on the platform at the station
The fear came over him of something terrible about to happen:
The train was late and he recited the alphabet to keep hold.

And in its time it came screeching in
And as it went on making its usual stops,
People coming and going, telephone poles passing,

He hid his head behind a newspaper
No longer able to hold back the sobs, and willed his eyes
To follow the rational weavings of the seat fabric.

He didn't do anything violent as he had imagined.
He cried for a long time, but when he finally quieted down
A place in him that had been closed like a fist was open,

And at the end of the ride he stood up and got off that train:
And through the streets and in all the places he lived in later on
He walked, himself at last, a man among men,
With such radiance that everyone looked up and wondered.


From Counting Myself Lucky: Selected Poems 1963-1992, (c) Black Sparrow Press.