Art and poetry on page and stage
11
Edward Field
PRESENCES
Sometimes it seems I’ve made up
of everyone I’ve ever seen,
yet among the images in my mind
I find myself dwelling on certain beings,
chosen without hesitation.
A face remembered from the barracks,
no one I really knew
or had the sense to pay attention to.
But his face is my guide, an angel,
appearing when I need him.
This one, too, with gentle eyes,
that one moving with a soft manliness,
they lend us something of their being somehow —
it improves us just to have seen them,
in one nourishing moment
revealing to us an essence.
How I dream of a far country
where all the men are like that.
O to be there, in their presence.