Field Light

<p class=ql-align-justify><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Field Light</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> written as an extended multi-sectioned poem that moves in and out of prose</span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>is a personal and historical exploration of the Berkshires through poetry and prose. Physician-poet Owen Lewis becomes a figure in his own epic as he learns to see himself and the abounding history that lives in the towns of western Massachusetts. From the writers Hawthorne Melville nearby Stanley Kunitz Chris Gilbert and others to artists Daniel Chester French his daughter Peggy Cresson and Norman Rockwell from the young lawyer Theodor Sedgwick who undertook a trial in 1781 to free Elizabeth Mumbet ending slavery in Massachusetts to civil rights champion W.E.B. Du Bois to Arlo Guthrie to physician Austen Riggs and his psychiatric hospital to Gertrude Smith and the founding of Tanglewood </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Field Light</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> investigates layered histories to create a compelling cultural political and social narrative with its cycles of privilege and racism that continues to unfold. It is the story of finding one's voice amid many voices and the importance of the community of voices.</span></p><p></p><p>SAMPLE:</p><p></p><p>(1991)</p><p></p><p>In rain I first saw the house</p><p>shingled in Dormouse gray.</p><p>Through streaked windows </p><p>of wavering glass its fields wild </p><p>impenetrable November</p><p>weather raising a dog's musty</p><p>history-scent others' histories</p><p></p><p>not a New York smell inside.</p><p>(Underfoot a wall-to-wall patch-</p><p>work of multi-colored carpet </p><p>remnants covering up</p><p>the old chestnut floors</p><p>the toddlers each chose </p><p>a carpet square as home-base.)</p><p></p><p>I heard the agent say-</p><p><em>No ghosts!-</em>but overhead </p><p>quick-clicking ceiling feet </p><p>scamper the attic red squirrels</p><p>and gray racing the dark.</p><p>From the eaves flying-squirrels </p><p>jumping into the mist.</p><p></p>