Bonnie Jamison Blackman, Shining Field

Shining field, present brook, do not abandon me.
Obscure terror lurks in my present,
But I am bound by this organ that does mystify me.
I cannot escape.

What is the source, bound in its gorge,
That will carve away the sustaining figure from my shadow?
Its details render a muted crush, a scoring shift.
I may not escape.

Admired fettle, mystify me once more.
Reveal yourself. Do not confine but stretch forward
That I might emerge and cry aloud,
“I will escape!”

Bonnie Jamison Blackman is an English teacher and magazine editor. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in English/French from the University of Arkansas and her Master’s in English at Southern Methodist University, where she studied poetry with Laurence Perrine.