You swing the scythe in washed out flaxen fields
You may hear the blade against the dried out stalk
It is a sweet sound if the cutting edge is thin
You will listen for that faultless cut, it is a veiled thing
It will hide in the murmur of starlings and six-row barley
You will swing and scare the murderous crows
In repetitions you swing with the turning of your hips
They are never the same, form of swing or ting of blade
The light will fail and you will walk home under cast out corncrakes
By turf lit doorway you will sit and spit then drag the whetstone
You will smother the wicks and set loose the hungry tomcat,
Evicted field-mice are suing for recompense.
