Scott Chaskey is a poet, farmer, and educator who for a quarter century has worked the land for the Peconic Land Trust at Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York. He wrote the poem he recites here in 1990, while living on a hillside in Mousehole, Cornwall, UK.
A BREATH
Meadow man, house scholar,
from field to chair
I hear the deep choir of the anvil.
Iron and rust; irony, dust.
Then Nordic beat breaks to summer:
willows wave, elderberry beads
gift the cloud.
Dog rose shades the shore.
In a measure of rage
I know the weightlessness of innocence.
At dawn silken nursery tents
spin the field to song.
Sea air, violet betony stair
shake the man to make
of breath a mortal joy.
Scott Chaskey
c. 1990
With thanks to Scott Chaskey
Produced by Made By Sea
Filmed by Guillaume le Berre of 5Mars