Harvest Interruptions

Harvest Interruptions Pt. I: Inspiration

I’m always getting stuck in rhyme,
Even when I don’t have the time,
As now. The sun, its proudest shine,
Brings ripe canola I’ve called mine.
So I can’t spare this time for pause
Even for my ultimate cause
Of twisting on a rhythm’s bend,
My dearest friend. And I pretend
I’m sunk in dripping pools of rhyme;
They bog my swather, stop its claws.
Still, I’m sure my plants don’t mind.


Harvest Interruptions Pt. II: Broke-Down

I like that I know the look
Of 40 acres left
From a hill
Swathed in August green.
The prettiest hill I’ve seen.
Prettier than in a book,
Or on a screen.
But at the base,
And out of place
Is my machine
At a standstill.
This 40 left,
What to be done?
I thought this hike
Might tell.
It served me well
Cause this looks like it looks like.
The 40’s all
To cut this fall,
Out of the full half-section.
Wound it pretty close to done,
I reckon.

Harvest Interruptions Pt. III: Rain

Every season dangles by its whim
But fragilest of all is reaping time.
I’ve seeded through its spits to get it in,
I’ve danced to summer storms that black the sky.
I’ve struggled through a hip’s height worth of snow
To get to where it was I wished to go.
But in the fall, the rumour of a visit,
When you wonder: Is it not raining or is it?
Or the days-long after memory of one past,
When you notice how long fall wetness can last,
Sets the plants to drooling so the combine
Snorts and grunts to grind their bones to bits.
It likes it better (this preference isn’t mine)
When the sunny autumn days run one to next
And acre after acre is ingested
And its belly fills on grain grown ripe in sun.
When only skiffs of cloud appear and go
To act as canvas for the evening show,
When the sun throws yellow out to blue
And from that comes every shade and hue
Of purples- and of reds and oranges too.
It likes that and it purrs like it was new.
So it won’t stand for when rain falls,
Knowing as it does what dry is like.
It chokes and sputters, slows to chew and stalls.
It curses at the sky with puffs of smoke,
(Even the morning dew can make it choke).
But I can never find a disappointment
When its specks start gathering on the glass.
I think of all the thirsty prairie poplars
Or my neighbour’s cow’s brown crunchy pasture grass.
I’ve heard the reasons farmers get excited
About the prospect of a soggy spell.
They calculate projected profit losses
And say things like: This rain’s costly as hell.
But it seems the rain is rightly just the reason
(Along with sun and sweat and luck and hope)
That we have any loss to lose at all.
And just because it’s falling out of season
Can’t seem to make me hate the rain in fall.
If it’s just a teaser of a shower
We’ll plough through and make the machines whump
Around an autumn turned a western ochre.
But if it settles in to be a soaker,
We go until it gobbles in a clump.
Then puffing from the pulling of the plug,
We’ll gather around someone’s coffee jug.
And smiling we will say: Oh, this darn weather
While none of us can wait to use the chance,
We chat the ride home huddled close together,
To rinse the barley itch from neck to pants
To crawl into a dream of ripened wishes
And try to repay weeks of overtired.
The boys rush home to make their babies smile,
Daddy you’re home: I will be for a while.

Rain can build up on the edge of harvest skies
But never can a farmer hate to see it come.
He surely needs the time to rest his eyes,
Even if it stops the combine hum,
To sleep and dream again until it dries.