<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Oil Field<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019d have thought that we were headed <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael McKimm<\/strong> is an Eric Gregory Award winning poet, author of Still This Need<\/em> (Heaventree Press, 2009). In 2012 he received a writing grant from Arts Council England. Fossil Sunshine<\/em> is forthcoming from Worple Press, 2013.\u00a0\u00a0 This is his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oil Field You\u2019d have thought that we were headed into wilderness, crossing the frost-still marsh through the forest\u2019s early cataract of light. Our quiet coach was clocked by long-horned bulls, ghost-white in clearances and shaded leas. And even when we caught first sight of fencing and the nodding donkeys, they somehow looked so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5517"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5577,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5517\/revisions\/5577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\ninto wilderness, crossing the frost-still marsh
\nthrough the forest\u2019s early cataract of light.
\nOur quiet coach was clocked by long-horned bulls,
\nghost-white in clearances and shaded leas.
\nAnd even when we caught first sight
\nof fencing and the nodding donkeys,
\nthey somehow looked so incidental, sparse
\namongst the trees, the distant yachts at Poole.
\nWe parked, disembarked. The air was sent
\nour steamed October breath. We smelled just pine.
\nThe security guard yelled No Photography.
\nWe walked up through the forest in a line
\nthen gathered on a ridge above the fence
\nto watch the heaving wells, their duck and pull,
\ntheir slow lament, or maybe stoic dream \u2013
\nthree kings, commanding and benevolent.
\nHow calm it was, the wind sock hanging limp.
\nWe stayed out of long grass, avoiding ticks,
\nand perhaps it was too cold for dreaded
\nwood ants to materialize. My jeans were stuck
\nin brambles where I plucked a blackberry.
\nAnd still the only noise \u2013 apart from science,
\napart from average stats \u2013 was the beam pump\u2019s
\ngentle purr, like an antique Singer threaded
\nthrough with jet, working with a rhythm
\nyou would never think so peaceful or so clean.<\/p>\n