Field Camp by Stuart Strum

Stuart Strum says "poetry is fate, not an avocation." He was born in Castalia, North Carolina and drank from the spring behind his father's house. When not writing poetry or laboring as an environmental consultant, Strum keeps busy by consuming craft-brewed ales in the company of gifted conversationalists.

 


Field Camp

Cresting the rim of the relict crater
Jemez Mountains
Valle Grande blew us away
Bathing in water not an hour from having been snow
We shook like foals, steaming in the morning sun

Crossing the La Salles we sang
Oh,
Mama,
Can this really be the end?
To be stuck inside of Moab
With the Taos blues again
The Dear John letters came one by one
Our advisers failed to warn us
Of the romantic implications
That came with this course of study

And we drove back east to Chapel Hill
Only to get stuck in the truckers' strike
Coming back into the world
It seemed to be falling apart
Three Mile Island
Hostage Crisis
Lines at the pumps

It sucked when the old man came to pick me up
Tobacco still in the field
Waiting to make my hands black and sticky
With finishing the harvest
A brief holiday from broken-heartedness
Is a hard thing to let go of