Harvest Dust
The road is burned to dust, like more dust meadow rue
Smokes in the meadow. Berries are balanced to fall
At a cobweb's echo. Apples will soon be over, nothing is left to do
For the trees but to crook their elbows on the wall.
In the farmhouse doorway a woman husking corn
Droops to where, softer than children's hair, a yellow heap
Of the silk fondles her hand. Under her eyes her face is as worn
As the stone steps where she sits and has fallen asleep.
What is it all for? Why must the earth crack
Over and over, beneath this searing breath?
Only that apples be amber and berries black,
And women content and wearied unto death.
~~
Winifred Welles
from This Delicate Love, 1929
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]
Winifred Welles biography
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