in the field

Opening of the Field

field guide

We did publish a "field guide" to the piece, with writing by Gary and artwork by Kimberly. Email Gary if you would like a copy: chimfarm@gwi.net or, even better, send a little donation for mailing and printing costs to Gary Lawless, 617 East Neck Road, Nobleboro, Maine 04555.

Here's a poem by Rumi:

When grapes turn
to wine, they long for our ability to change.

When stars wheel
around the North Pole
they are longing for our growing consciousness.

Wine got drunk with us,
not the other way.
The body developed out of us, not we from it.

We are bees
and our body is a honeycomb.
We made
the body, cell by cell, we made it.

(translated by Robert Bly)

poem from Jonathan Skinner

The Field
(Gary Lawless and Kimberly Callas)

sparrows' eggs
sit in satchels
in a wicker portal

constellated
like the pleiades
seven sisters
each in a satchel

counted by the
spindle headed
pigtail belted
star pierced
bearer of fortunes

a spirit in a cave
stares at the beehive
over a sunny portal

a halcyon sunflower with
honeycomb on the brain,

this piece is breaking frames
like a field of sunflowers
one seed at a time

Jonathan Skinner

I also thought of William Carlos Williams:

"It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force...
the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower"

("Queen Anne's Lace")

Thanks for opening some portals!
Jonathan Skinner

field reading