Growing Season

Hands as hard as tree roots,
you work the valley's acid soil
with tongueless wit and tools
ready for the scrapper.
Stalking the night to fish for slugs
in the sleeping lettuce beds,
you drop them into a cold steel pail
for secret deposition over the boundary wall.

There's much to learn from a life lived by the seasons.

Year by year, you turn your face
to the white wind as the ghost
of the moon winks over the hill
where foxes cry in the night.
You wear the dank suit of Autumn,
soured by the sweat of work.
Sweet blessings of abundance:
There'll be times the crops will fail.