Parking
I have this memory.
I am walking across a field
a squelching field
a field that would suck your wellingtons off
the wind is a wet dish cloth
slapping my face
cow pats are dotted like landmines.
I love the countryside
but I don’t love this countryside
with its barbed wire fences
its ragged ditches
its baleful cows.
In the far corner of the field
I come across the rusty shell
of an old Mercedes
abandoned by the farmer
after one last muddy trip to the market,
and I’ve been thinking lately
I should take some ideas I have
some long held, unexamined beliefs
and park them in the far corner of a field,
top of the list being
the irrational notion
that somehow
against all odds,
we would all continue
to live, forever.
The ever eloquent Brendan over at Desperate Poets aks us to write an elegy. This is one from the past , I think it has perhaps an elegaic tone
It previously appeared on dverse (the prompt was “metaphors”)
This poem originally appeared in Cyphers Magazine.
Stopdraggingthepanda 
I like the thought of parking beliefs in a corner of the field. They should keep the Mercedes company.
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Thanks Frank!
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I can imagine the mind being a field littered with half-baked ideas, some of which are easier to swallow than the truth, so corralling them to keep them out of circulation definitely would be a good idea.
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Yep, I have a collection of half baked ideas, and few that are fully baked! 😊
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This stuck out to me:
“I love the countryside
but I don’t love this countryside”
Not sure exactly why. Because it won’t give you the answer you need but know can never be?
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It’s more that sometimes the countryside can be utilitarian as opposed to pastoral!
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Your images take me back to farm days! …cow pats are dotted like landmines.
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Step carefully!
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Ha Ha! You are right!
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I walked across that field, the one that would suck your wellingtons off, Jim, with cow pats dotted like landmines – in County Meath in Ireland over 38 years ago! It’s possible I left a few ideas parked there too. I feel heartache for the baleful cows in your poem, having to graze near a rusted Mercedes.
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That is uncanny Kim, the memory is of a visit to the farm of my wife’s in laws, near Slane, County Meath!
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I know Slane. I went to a concert at Slane Castle years ago when we lived in Navan in 1980, and then moved to Moynalty near Kells in 1981.
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Small world!
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No doubt the Mercedes has tales to tell … and no one to listen since the cows have moooooved in. (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)
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Hard for that Mercedes to remain mooootivated!
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What a profound write!
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Thank you, Linda, much appreciated<
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I really love how you used the less appealing part of nature (or at least the countryside) and tie to the conclusion in the end… maybe it’s when with life like this the thought of our own death seems less threatening?
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Thank you Bjorn!
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Excellent use of metaphor Jim! Creatively conceived, and very effective! A littered field of a mind…
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Thanks Rob, much appreciated, hope your eye problem is improving…JIM
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A very pleasing darkness, Jim. I particularly like the recollection giving rise to the awareness of death, and the description of that recollection with all its symbolism. This is a wonderful interpretation of memento mori.
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Thanks Steve, much appreciated!
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“….that somehow we would continue to live forever….” Yes, that is maybe the biggest elegy of all. Wonderful, Jim.
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I love the idea of parking old ideas that are no longer relevant in a field and leaving them to rust.
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How many stuttering shuddering trips to market before that farmer finally decided to give ole Gretchen a final rest: And how long do we repeat our threadbare fantastias before we park them in a desolate field and leave them behind? The farewell to them is this elegy. Nice work, Jim.
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I was quite caught up in the narrative , especially the descriptive element here–the sense of being there in a natural setting made unnatural by man. No less a rape really than a strip mine or a factory–then you sprung the metaphor, and I am just gobsmacked by how you have invested every word of this poem towards its message in the close. Age will bring you up short in that junkyard of rusting ideas, and reality will make you see that some vehicles will never run again, and all we get from truth sometimes is that bitter ash we must accept.
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Love how this moves from the field (wind is a wet dishcloth) to something existential (irrational notion)… great write!
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Potent stuff here, indeed. It started for me with the baleful cows, then the abandoned Mercedes after one last muddy trip, and on to your gut punch of an ending. The idea of our own death is terrifying and foreign–after all, we have always been here, to ourselves. But one day will be the last and I find myself thinking of that more often as I age.
–Shay
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What an image! I found remains of an old desoto, just off the hill into the woods behind a field on splash dam road…
I took the taillight
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“I love the countryside
but I don’t love this countryside” – that’s great. And I like the image of parking our ideas off in the corner of a field like an old, rusty car.
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