#160 The Field

by Erastes

During winter, that dead season when the world sleeps under a counterpane of frost and forgetfulness, I find myself able to watch the field without crying.

It’s the slow time. The time when the living heartbeat of the earth slows to an almost imperceptible pace. The season when, if you brushed away the snow and risked your death to lie against the ground putting your ear to the soil, you might hear the trees snoring; their slumber reverberating through the very roots beneath. People say it’s a healing time; the world sleeps beneath a blanket of snow, the hurts inflicted by the plough and tiller are healed, ready for new beginnings, new life.

But some hurts are more grievous for the earth to heal over one winter. Some hurts linger on, in the ground and in the memory. Some scars on the landscape never heal, and yet I hope.

I still hope, every time I walk past the field to the village and I hear the sound-memory of canon and of screaming horses that the earth will forgive mankind for their wrongs. I find myself crossing my fingers when the snow falls. Make this the year, I pray to a God I’ve abandoned, when the snow recedes on the field and there is nothing but grass, nothing but grass and poppies.

And it’s ironic; only during this season of the silence of death can there be any hope of the earth hearing my prayer.

Only during winter.