Jan Zwicky's "Prairie"

Prairie

 And then I walked out into that hayfield west of Brandon,

evening, late July, a long day in the car from Nipissing

and long days in the car before that; the sun

was red, the field a glow of pink, and the smell of the grasses

and alfalfa and the sleek dark scent of water nearby…

I remember –now--  chasing something underneath the farmhouse table as a child

and seeing the big hasp on the underside that locked the two main leaves: it seemed

rough and enormous, out of keeping with the polished surfaces

it held together, almost medieval, I was startled and a bit afraid; and later

as an adult, fumbling for it, blind, at the limits of my reach,

how finally it would let go with a sharp jerk and the leaves

would sigh apart: but it was there,

in that hayfield, that I felt some rusty weight in my chest stick

then give, a slow opening to sky—

                                                it was that hasp, I know it now,

though at the time I did not recognize I was remembering,
nor, had you told me, would I then have known why.                                                  

                                                                                  Jan Zwicky

                  "Prairie" appeared in The Echoing Years, an anthology of poetry and translation from Ireland and Canada.