From the Desire Field

Natalie Diaz

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2017

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Sweet Grass

Sweet grass (also written as sweetgrass) is a powerful symbol in the poem. It is what the speaker finally imagines will bring her peace and put an end to her restlessness and anxiety. She wants her friend to tell her a story about planting and burning sweet grass, believing that the story will conjure up in her the smell of the “sweet smoke” (Line 37). In Native American lore, sweet grass is considered a sacred plant. It symbolizes healing, harmony, and peace. It is braided, dried, and then burned as part of religious ceremonies that include prayer. The aroma of burning sweet grass is said to be sweet (exactly as the speaker states). The purpose of burning it is to attract positive energies and protect against any negative spirits. Sweet grass is also said to be associated with happiness and kindness and possess a healing effect—its smoke purifies thought and the environment. Seen in this light, and given the restlessness and insomnia of the speaker in the poem, it is perhaps not surprising that even the thought of the aroma of burning sweet grass will be soothing for her. It also confirms her identity as a Native American.

Fluidity and Transformation

The fluidity of the self and the possibility of rapid transformation, much of it accomplished through language, is an idea that is woven into the poem. Emotions and states of mind and body are malleable and capable of being guided deliberately, as by changing the word one uses to describe them. Or, these emotions may flow with the tide of life itself in the depths of the night, when the speaker’s mind becomes “una bestia” (Line 14)—an unfettered beast, charging into imaginative realms of desire. Desire is also represented in the transformation of the lovers (into gardens full of leaves, thorns, wings, and flowers), and by the fluid movement of the river. The process of transformation is forever ongoing, and likely the relief anticipated in the imagined smell of the sweet grass is only one stage in the endless transformation of being and desiring—from “thrashed field” to “smooth” (Line 38) and back again.

Green

The color green appears several times in the poem, functioning as a recurring motif. It is mentioned eight times, ten if the Spanish word verde (green) is included. The poet takes her cue from Lorca’s “verde que te quiero verde” (Line 11). The flow of desire is like the greening of life in the spring. It is an unstoppable natural phenomenon that is synonymous with life itself, representing a form of natural creativity. Green is thus associated with an array of related images—spring, meadow, garden, growing life—the opposite of the frustration engendered by insomnia and anxiety that is the starting point of the poem. Green serves as an emblem of rejuvenation and transmutation. It is repeated so many times in the latter part of the poem that it conveys the vibrant urgency of physical desire that the speaker has for her partner. Most the references to green come within the span of five lines that describe this desire:

I want her green life. Her inside me

In a green hour I can’t stop.

Green vein in her throat green wing in my mouth

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green thorn in my eye. I want her like a river goes, bending.

Green moving green, moving.

(Lines 24-28)

Natalie Diaz herself has explained the significance of green in the Mojave language, stating in an interview that green is both an adjective and a verb:

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In Mojave, our word for green is also our word for blue. Havasuu. To say “Havasuuk” can mean “it is green,” or it can mean “a greening.” Green is a verb. It can happen. It does happen. It is life. Our word for the season of spring is also the thing spring does. Long before Neruda wrote the lines “Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos,” and long before Lorca wrote the lines “Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas,” the Mojave language held those possibilities. The language was dreamed for us to arrive at the wonders of the world and our life in, for and because of, the world (Graham, Evangeline Riddiford. “This Body Is a Gift: Natalie Diaz.” Public Seminar, April 6, 2020).

As in the Mojave language, green in the poem functions both as an adjective and a verb, and with the joining of the two lovers, the word embodies movement, transformation, and constant becoming.