The wild field

With a song dancing on her lips
she bids farewell to the sinking sun
walks home from the uncleared fields
the light in her hair, faded grass hat
clutched in one hand, and in the other
a home-made scythe.

She leans it against the wall
of her tiny hamlet, leaves it
glinting in the fading light
grateful to embrace the sweeping night.

From my perch on the low wall, from across
ancient borders I could watch
the lengthening shadows carefully veil
the rusty tool’s mud-covered face
touch the tired skin of its aged handle
made smooth along the edges where
the grip of many hands have left their mark –
of the woman in the field and her mother before her
grandmothers and aunts and sisters and daughter –
the unwritten recipe of woman’s labour.

There is work to be done
so come then

Grasp the handle with both hands
Wrap steady fingers around its wound
Lift it and hack away at roots
Tear off the grub from stony ground
Turn the soil over and expose the earth
soft as sorrow, moist as grief.

Gather the wild grass in heaps of tears
Bind them tightly into sheaves of hope
Push torn shrubbery into a pile
Burn it down to aching cinders
of memories that torment and hold
Then throw in the wounds that would not heal
and all that had camouflaged your worth.

Then take handfuls of the smouldering ash
Fling them off to the sheltering wind
and thus strewn across the fertile ground
feel them cradled in nurturing earth
Sprinkle your field with creative longing
Help them sprout into words that heal
Watch each root dig deep and anchor
into fervent knowledge that shuns all fear

and at summer’s end under golden light
spread your harvest in a feast of poems
to feed the hunger and free the dreams
caged and tortured in every heart.