An edited version of a poem I wrote in 2021 inspired by a Sorolla painting of wife and daughters lying in the grass.
As
we lay there, our grass
bodies
within
the sea
of
meadow; sweep of wind carrying us along,
flowers
of rye. We, the droning bumble bees
in
buttercups, the chirruping finches, chomping
cattle;
sudden
dartings
within
briary hedgerows,
rustlings,
commotions but
hunters’ silences too
and
only
a
vague
consciousness
of
the faraway
cataracts
of traffic.
How
sumptuous the flow of light and warmth,
the
sinuousness of our bodies in that current;
the
colours of the field embroidered
into
our bodies.
We,
agglomerations of the soil, but the criss-crossing
zeniths
of nerve and muscle too:
at
one with the swathes of breeze-blown beauty,
settled,
nested into our finest belonging.
