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THE STRENGTH OFFIELDS . . . a separation from the world, a penetration to some source ofpower and a life-enhancing return . . . Van Gennep: Rites de Passage Moth-force a small town always has, Given the night. What field-forms can be, Outlying the small civic light-decisions over A man walking near home? Men are not where he is Exactly now, but they are around him around him like the strength Offields. The solar system floats on Above him in town-moths. Tell me, train-sound, With all your long-lost grief: what I can give. Dear Lord ofall the fields what am I going to do? Street-lights, blue-force and frail As the homes ofmen, tell me how to do it how To withdraw how to penetrate and find the source Ofthe power you always had light as a moth, and rising With the level and moonlit expansion Ofthe fields around, and the sleep ofhoping men. You? I? What difference is there? We can all be saved By a secret blooming. Now as I walk The night and you walk with me we know simplicity Is close to the source that sleeping men Search for in their home-deep beds. We know that the sun is away we know that the sun can be conquered By moths, in blue home-town air. The stars splinter, pointed and wild. The dead lie under The pastures. They look on and help. Tell me, freight-train, When there is no one else To hear. Tell me in a voice the sea Would have, if it had not a better one: as it lifts, Hundreds ofmiles away, its fumbling, deep-structured roar Like the profound, unstoppable craving Of nations for their wish. Hunger, time and the moon: The moon lying on the brain as on the excited sea as on The strength offields. Lord, let me shake With purpose. Wild hope can always spring From tended strength. Everything is in that. That and nothing but kindness. More kindness, dear Lord Ofthe renewing green. That is where it all has to start: With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less Than save every sleeping one And night-walking one Of us. My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can. The Strength ofFields 149 ...

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