Steve Tomlin Crafts

I stumbled on this lovely poem by Bernadette Gallagher this morning and had to share it.

Haymaking

Who is it beckons me to try

My hand and body with a scythe

Is it someone that I know or is it

Someone beyond, that now

Lifts whetstone to the steel?

My memory of seeing men cut grass

While women and children rake and turn

Until the hay is dry then build a stack

Fork up the hay to the one on top

Who walks around making even underfoot.

And then a cover thrown over

Held down by heavy stones

To keep the hay

For hungry cows

When morning and nights are cold

Farmers now admit

That was the way

Of yesterday, today machines cut

And lift and into silage pits

The grass that once turned into hay.

With my scythe I carry on

Cutting a small meadow

That once was lawn.

This year was my first and too late

For making hay.

The grass I cut will lie

In mini stacks, not fully dry

But dry enough to keep

Small wild things warm through winter

And into Spring.

Next year I will be prepared

Will clean down the blade

Tighten bolts, peen and sharpen

Remove the burr

And put aside my pen.

(c)Bernadette Gallagher