two fields of wheat: a planting

 

PARK

palimpsest

RAIN

can it, can it not?

  

SUN

of the fields, general

of the woods, specific

  

GRASSES

whispers

ROOTS

grow in decay

POPPY

red top

TEAM

two-steppers

 

ALIEN

ruth

  

WHEAT

what has ears, roots & shoots?

  

BREAD

baked meal

 

two fields of wheat seeded with a poppy poem

commissioned by Milton Keynes Gallery offsite in 2005

with thanks to the late Michael Stanley, Emma Dean, David Easton,

Lyndall Phelps, John Letts, Alex Hodby, and Caitlin DeSilvey

an account of the project was published as a collaborative poem-narrative,

of which this is an extract

one begins with the image

poppy-red

against Breughel-yellow corn

a microtonal sculpture

one hundred thousand pixels

a poem grown acre

an abundance of care

this field could be anywhere

but then there comes a place

which was your sending me the photograph

of Campbell Park.

     (Alec Finlay)

the place, yes

back end of Milton Keynes,

just past the John Lewis car park,

under Marlborough Street and around the fountain

(seldom spurting)

 tumbling hill, green swale

stray sheep

canal glint under more sky

     (Caitlin DeSilvey)

the idea does the inviting

and then the idea becomes

not an object but a process,

handfuls of seed scattered

a sign on each gate

growing time sets before us

a series of episodes

of days, seasons,

of sun and light and rain

of the growth that comes from these

the way the year is dark and then light,

how the plants take that energy in

how the crop becomes

each part of that process is it's own episode;

a chain of festival days –

fencing the enclosure,

the ploughing, sowing the seed,

harvest, milling, baking bread

     (AF)

but first, two fields,

one slung at the base of the beacon hill

knowing the easterly oaks,

the way of spring seep and low winter light,

seasons of fallow and fullness

the other hung on a scrabbled slope,

soil a scrim of bricks and clay,

hard leavings of the city's making

assembled into a field-like shape

     (CD)

and then the seed

cast for cast

APRIL BEARDED

Triticum aestivum

  

PARAGON

Triticum aestivum

two fields of wheat

morning star/Milton Keynes Gallery £4

photograph: David Easton, Emma Dean