How They Speak of the Fields

For Timothy Yu For us. They say: just dig your hands into the good, good soil of the field and you will grow into a child of our heart. Be quiet and work, for you are good at it, for you are almost a child of our heart already. Listen and we will reward you. We will reward you, but don’t talk — you will want to have earned the reward. We will reward you later, much, much later. Are you not a child of the field, a child native to the field? But I have never seen the field. I was born in it but squeezed my eyes shut. I squeezed my eyes hard shut so I could imagine another field....