Load

Henry Hillier Parker

Load

Today we carried home the last brown sheaf

and hookt the scythe against the dry barn wall:

the yellow border's on the chestnut leaf,

the beech leaf's yellow all.

Tomorrow we must bring the apples in,

they are as big as they shall ever be:

already starlings ready to begin

have tasted many a tree.

And in the garden, all the roses done,

the light lies gently, faint and almost cold,

on wither'd goldenrod and snapdragon

and tarnisht marigold.

John Hewitt

It is too easy to forget what the seasons really mean. Food! For the mouth and heart and eyes. And the different work that this entails. There was a time when the earth was closer to my everyday experience. But I have lost contact in many ways. Is it strange to find it in words, in poetry? Now, when I am walking the paved streets, I remember how it used to be. My mother in the garden, pulling up bright orange carrots, purple beets, washing them clean. Shelling peas, blanching endive, slicing green beans – each vegetable in its time, and time a succession of vegetable events. I miss earth time. Clock time is my conductor now, and it’s not the same.

Thank goodness for poetry and memory.

“Today we carried home the last brown sheaf.”

“Tomorrow we must bring the apples in.”