Field Guide
by Lisa Hirschfield
for her grandmother Sadie
for her grandmother Sadie
Our morning walks
through cool chaparral
salt air and wild sage
trying and often failing
to memorize
the accurate flash
of color
until I could get home
and open the book you gave me
Golden-crowned sparrow
house finch
Oregon junco
not to be confused
with the rufous-sided towhee
and once the actual blue
of a robin’s egg
All unexotic
but I wanted to know their names
their songs
their seasons
their other homes
Unlike learning to press wildflowers
watching your hands
gently arranging
larkspur
sand aster
cranesbill
and the illicit orange
of the California poppy
We interred them between volumes
of the World Book Encyclopedia
1955
For days I imagined pages
of bright fields
But there was no place
in my world yet
for faded things forced
into the wrong dimension
Though I must have saved them somewhere
because I never could throw anything away
because back then
everything had a face
Now I am only sure of your body
so delicate it takes
four men to lift
so you can lie in the garden
warming
maybe feel the breeze
brush your paper skin
I imagine myself descending
like you into these flowers
you once named cosmos
but then my body buoyed
by this invisible sea
of sound and light
How will you recede
to that single point in the dark
When I was ten
you told me
once you hear a meadowlark
you can never forget it
