Fields of creme expanse

that undulate in slow, rolling hills

and taint purity

with the pickings of Cambodian mines. 

Absent photons that seep

into matted hide

and chisel increments of 

stopped clocks upon the wall. 

You may pull that curtain aside, 

feel as your palms travel smoothly

across entwined sugar cane,

breach the tangible

and plunge through barriers of rumination

into nights by lamplight, 

scattered manuscripts

and the beaten anvil of a weary mind. 

Here, you see life

from the slump of exasperation,

the stubble of neglect,

the freed sediment of characters cast away. 

You see the world as it dulls

through the eyes of faded sunglasses,

hear the rhythmic drone

of punched keys

and the omnipresent

drip 

drip

drip

as pores give way to showers. 

What are these fields

and why do you feel pushed between them,

encapsulated like a 15th-century dissident

in an earthen holding cell?

What is this stagnant scent

that chokes your nasal cavity

until you yield under the weight

of papers unwritten? 

In this book:

you will spin amidst the final nine months of a scholar

with reddened eyelids 

who radiates the optimism of a decade;

the optimism of twelve tomes 

just like you

that will soon snap 

in echoing finality.