The “I” from the poem, the sole speaker, laments the upcoming destruction of the field for the new wing of the mall. as This is perhaps her last time to see this field and writes this poem almost as a pre-death eulogy to the scotch brooms. Throughout the poem, she makes reference to the ominous nature of civilization, all around, that is slowly but surely closing in on this field. Her scotch brooms, the second "person" in the poem, are however, totally unaware of the destruction that impends – as one might expect. Thus there is a tension between the peaceful nature of the unsuspecting scotch broom and the speaker’s knowledge of what is to come. She visits them as one might visit a friend in the hospital one last time. Leaving them "at the crest of the hill" pulls on her heart and ends with the field "defibrillating" her, as if the Scotch Broom keep her alive – somehow comforting the sadness of leaving her friend for the last time. The experience she describes is that of impending modernization and its destructive nature for an individual – progress taking away her friend. While clearing the field may not be creating the existential crisis that it would if these were Mary Oliver's Oaks, the author is losing her place of peace, one she needed for her health: to keep her heart in its natural habits; an escape of kind: a necessary vacation for her health – is even at its end. It was place for her soul to rest, away from the modern world.

click here for a recording of the poem

To The Field Of Scotch Broom That Will Be Buried By The New Wing Of The Mall

Lucia Perillo

Half costume jewel, half parasite, you stood
swaying to the music of cash registers in the distance
while a helicopter chewed the linings
of the clouds above the clear-cuts.
And I forgave the pollen count
while cabbage moths teased up my hair
before your flowers fell apart when they
turned into seeds. How resigned you were
to your oblivion, unlistening to the cumuli
as they swept past. And soon those gusts
will mill you, when the backhoe comes
to dredge your roots, but that is not
what most impends, as the chopper descends
to the hospital roof so that somebody’s heart
can be massaged back into its old habits.

Mine went a little haywire
at the crest of the road, on whose other side
you lay in blossom.
As if your purpose were to defibrillate me
with a thousand electrodes,
one volt each.

Comment on this page