The Field

The Field

Behind my house
there is a field
filled with tall, sticky weeds
rocks big enough to sit on
grasshoppers, crickets
and an occasional mouse.

The field is a baseball diamond
where nightly battles are waged
beneath the setting sun and awakening moon
with only mosquitoes as spectators.

The field is a teeming jungle
occupied by snakes and tigers
which we bravely fight against
with slingshots, squirt guns, and sticks.

Wars are waged in our field
beneath the scorching midday sun
with only the foxhole and apple tree
for protection from the evasive enemy.

The field is a peaceful graveyard
for dead dogs, birds, and squirrels.
Stick crosses are solemnly erected
only to be crushed during the evening ball game.

In our field we net the largest butterflies
dig the longest night crawlers
eat the juiciest apples
and rest in the most secluded spot.

But every August the man with his tractor comes
to mercilessly cut the field
as we watch in tearful silence
while our special place is destroyed.

We still play in the field after that
but it isn’t the same somehow.
It just isn’t the same.

(A poem of my childhood -- written in 2010 -- I really like this one and am glad that I wrote ir!)

For What's Going On? -- Open Link