Harvest Home

We laid our back against the stack
Wiped sweat and hayseeds from our brow
Caps cocked to shield the sun
Thirst slain in the billy-can



We squinted at swallows in their drunken dives
With no rhyme nor reason nor route to roost

Our limbs tired and toiled those fields
Till sunset, where stacks , some small
Gave birth to bigger ones

The day the baler came with reverence we accepted
Its offspring into our blistered hands
And nursed that harvest home

With many a shout ‘Watch out’
as one bale tumbled from the trailer
into the pressure cooker barn

And we built castles that Summer eve'
Tight to the tin-high heaven roof
Castles for cattle whose winter weary days
Were bunged up in dunged-up, silent byres

And they would chew the cud
And chew the cud and suck the Summer dew
When Winter froze the ground
And we were boys in the Spring of our lives