Lavigny: Day Six

The time is going TOO FAST!


Midsummer

The farmer cut the hay
before I came
and laid it out
in careful curves around the field.
Now, each noon,
he comes again to turn the grass,
drying in the sun through
shades of green, to celadon and beige,
while overhead the handsome buzzards
turn their cartwheels in the sky
and drop
to harvest ousted mice

Until the evening when I find
that all the grass is
baled and dotted round the stubble,
uncountable strands compacted,
circled up with miles of nylon string.
It's the most I can do
to make one roll at all,
but long-legged girls
scramble on board,
leap and laugh theirs
right across the field
when they think no one's watching

In the morning
the girls are gone
and already the farmer's there to haul
the summer-scented
cylinders
away,
with thoughts that turn to autumn

And all that's left,
until I leave -
a cat,
one tiny tiger
watching the round holes
of vole