Hey
Hey up now Maurice!
Up with that last bale! Aye that’s right
Set it there lad
like a coping on this freshbuilt wall of hay.
Right, that’s the harvest done. The last hot dusty load.
Crack us them beercans now
Let’s drink me lads to th’harvest, and the work we’ve done
under the almighty sun, let’s cool us selves awhile
in this here welcome shade –
and soon off home, leave Gordon to his milking
and the fields to their bright silence, free of hay and men
and busy busying machines.
Hey look now, here the old cows come! I wonder do they notice
these great heaps of food, as they come swaying past –
I expect they do –
says Gordon, eyeing the sweet warm stack, his face hot
weathered, hat caked smooth with years of muck –
and, as Autumn
winters towards spring, each bale dismantled may cast back
his mind to sweat and pulse of summer and the splendid harvest-grind
Hey - by Patrick Huddie
17th May 2018