2.3.13

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







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